The Olympics

THE OLYMPICS

Canceled Games

The International Olympic Committee faced awesome difficulties planning the 1940 Olymiad. The games were first scheduled to be held in Japan, but in 1938 the Japanese were preoccupied by their conflict with the Chinese and withdrew as the host country. The IOC then awarded the games to Helsinki, Finland, whose plans were interrupted when the Russians invaded in 1939. By that time it was clear that world events were too chaotic to allow for the Olympics. The war forced cancellation of the 1940 and 1944 games, and many believed that the depth of international hatred aroused by the war would end the Olympics altogether. But in 1945 the International Olympic Committee met in bomb-scarred London to plan the 1948 games for that city. The German blitz had devastated much of London; housing was at a premium; everything from food to transportation was rationed. Critics and naysayers abounded. The bickering set a new Olympic record for acrimony, and ultimately Japan, Germany, and Italy were barred from competing. The Soviet Union, which had not participated in an Olympiad since the Russian Revolution of 1917, did not participate this time either.

Summer Olympics

London was ill-prepared but eager for the Olympics. For the most part the games were held in existing facilities as the British could spare neither the money nor the materials to construct an Olympic village. Male athletes stayed at an army camp in Uxbridge; the women, in dormitories at Southland College. The weather did not cooperate. It rained almost every day during the competition, and on the rare occasions when the sky was clear the track remained soggy. Eager to put the war behind them, fifty-nine countries entered the 1948 games, more than in any other Olympiad, but relatively few records were set. The conditions were less than ideal, and many of the world's best athletes were either injured, distracted, or out of condition because of war.

1948 Summer Games

In men's track and field, the core of the games, the United States demonstrated convincingly that it still had world-class talent. The Americans won eleven events, Sweden five, and eight other countries one each. For the first time in Olympic history, no competitor won more than one individual track and field event. The darling of the Olympics was clearly the American boy wonder, Bob Mathias. Only seventeen, Mathias earned the title of world's greatest amateur athlete during the 1948 Olympics by winning the grueling decathlon. Since the days of Jim Thorpe, the decathlon had been the supreme test of track and field ability and versatility. A natural athlete, Mathias trained for only a month before his first decathlon competition against college stars, and he won. Six weeks later he was in the Olympics, competing against experienced athletes from around the world. When asked, after the gold medal ceremony, "What are you going to do to celebrate?" Mathias answered, "Start shaving, I guess." He also won the United States decathlon championship in 1949 and 1950. He became the star running back for the Stanford football team in 1951 and returned to the Olympics in 1952 to win a second gold medal in Helsinki. The Olympics were also a special time for American sprinter Harrison "Bones" Dillard, who not only took home the gold in the 100-meter, but defeated Mel Patton, holder of the world record in that event. In the 1952 Olympics Dillard won the 110-meter high hurdles as well, adding another gold medal to his collection. Two military men were gold medal victors: U.S. Army Air Force Sergeant Mai Whitfield broke the world record in the 800-meter run, and Sammy Lee, a Korean-American who served as an eye, ear, and nose specialist in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, won the high-diving event. The U.S. basketball team, led by Bob "Foothills" Kurland, won easily, and in heavyweight weight lifting the American hero was John Henry Davis, a Brooklyn mechanic who hoisted a combined 997 pounds in the military press, the snatch, and the clean and jerk. He was a repeat winner in 1952.

Winter Olympics

At the Winter Olympics in Saint Moritz, Switzerland, the United States took gold medals in skiing and figure skating for the first time in Olympic history. Gretchen Fraser won the slalom, while eighteen-year-old Dick Button glided to victory in the men's figure skating, becoming a favorite of spectators. Button, from Englewood, New Jersey, was not only the first American to win a gold medal in figure skating, he produced the highest point total in Olympic history: 994.7 in compulsory figures and 191.77 in free skating. When the games ended in February, the United States took home three gold medals, four silver, and two bronze, the best American showing in Winter Olympic history. The United States finished behind only Sweden and Switzerland.

ATTACK TENNIS

In 1947 Jack Kramer became the indoor as well as outdoor champion of American tennis using a powerful offense. In the first four tournaments of the year, Kramer did not lose a set or even allow anyone to break his serve. Coach Mercer Beasley called it "tennis without defense. Everything is attack these davs."

Sources:

William Oscar Johnson, The Olympics: A History of the Games (Montgomery, Ala.: Oxmoor House, 1978);

John Kieran and Arthur Daley, The Story of the Olympic Games, 776 B. C. to 1972 (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1973);

Dick Schaap, An Illustrated History of the Olympics (New York: Knopf, 1975).