1952 Summer Olympics

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Games of the XV Olympiad
1952 Summer Olympics logo.png
Host city Helsinki, Finland
Nations participating 69
Athletes participating 4,955
(4,436 men, 519 women)
Events 149 in 17 sports
Opening ceremony July 19
Closing ceremony August 3
Officially opened by President Juho Kusti Paasikivi
Athlete's Oath Heikki Savolainen
Olympic Torch Paavo Nurmi and
Hannes Kolehmainen
Stadium Olympic Stadium

The 1952 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XV Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Helsinki, Finland, in 1952. Helsinki had been earlier selected to host the 1940 Summer Olympics, which were cancelled due to World War II. It had been the Olympic Games at which the most number of world records were broken, until surpassed by the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.[1] The Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, and Israel made their Olympic debuts in Helsinki 1952.

Host city selection[edit]

Helsinki was chosen as the host city over bids from Amsterdam and five American cities at the 40th IOC Session on June 21, 1947, in Stockholm, Sweden. Minneapolis and Los Angeles finished tied for second in the final voting.

The voting results, in a chart below, comes from the International Olympic Committee Vote History web page.

1952 Summer Olympics bidding results[2]
City Country Round 1 Round 2
Helsinki  Finland 14 15
Minneapolis  United States 4 5
Los Angeles  United States 4 5
Amsterdam  Netherlands 3 3
Detroit  United States 2
Chicago  United States 1
Philadelphia  United States 0


Paavo Nurmi and the Olympic Flame
  • The newly established People's Republic of China (PRC) participated in the Olympics for the first time, although only one swimmer (Wu Chuanyu) of its 40-member delegation arrived in time to take part in the official competition.[3] The PRC would not return to the Summer Olympics until Los Angeles 1984.
  • The Republic of China (Taiwan) withdrew from the Games on July 20, in protest of the IOC decision to allow athletes from the People's Republic of China to compete.[4]
  • To the enjoyment of the Finnish crowd, the Olympic Flame was lit by two Finnish heroes, runners Paavo Nurmi and Hannes Kolehmainen. Nurmi first lit the cauldron inside the stadium, and later the flame was relayed to the stadium tower where Kolehmainen lit it. Only the flame in the tower was burning throughout the Olympics.
  • Hungary, a country of 9 million inhabitants, won 42 medals at these games, coming in third place behind the much more populous United States and Soviet Union.
  • Hungary's Golden Team won the football tournament, beating Yugoslavia 2–0 in the final.
  • Germany and Japan were invited after being barred in 1948. Following the post-war occupation and partition, three German states had been established. Teams from the Federal Republic of Germany and the Saarland (which joined the FRG after 1955) participated; the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) was absent. Though they won 24 medals, the fifth-highest total at the Games, German competitors failed to win a gold medal for the only time.
  • Rules in equestrianism now allowed non-military officers to compete, including women. Lis Hartel of Denmark became the first woman in the sport to win a medal.
  • Emil Zátopek of Czechoslovakia won three gold medals in the 5000 m, 10,000 m and the Marathon (which he had never run before).
  • The India national field hockey team won its fifth consecutive gold.
  • Bob Mathias of the United States became the first Olympian to successfully defend his decathlon title with a total score of 7,887 points.
  • Josy Barthel of Luxembourg pulled a major surprise by winning the 1500 m.


A Romanian poster promoting the 1952 Olympics

The 1952 Summer Olympic programme featured 149 events in the following 17 sports:

Demonstration sports[edit]


Participating NOCs[edit]

Participating nations. Pictured in blue are nations participating for the first time. Yellow dot: Helsinki
Number of athletes per country

A total of 69 nations participated in these Games, up from 59 in the 1948 Games. Thirteen nations made their first Olympic appearance in 1952: The Bahamas, the People's Republic of China, Gold Coast (now Ghana), Guatemala, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Netherlands Antilles, Nigeria, Soviet Union (USSR), Thailand, and Vietnam.

Japan and Germany were both reinstated and permitted to send athletes after being banned for 1948 for their instigation of World War II. Due to the division of Germany, German athletes from Saar entered a separate team for the only time. Only West Germany would provide athletes for the actual Germany team, since East Germany refused to participate in a joint German team.

Medal count[edit]

These are the top ten nations that won medals at the 1952 Games.[5]

 Rank  Nation Gold Silver Bronze Total
1 United States 40 19 17 76
2 Soviet Union 22 30 19 71
3 Hungary 16 10 16 42
4 Sweden 12 13 10 35
5 Italy 8 9 4 21
6 Czechoslovakia 7 3 3 13
7 France 6 6 6 18
8 Finland (host nation) 6 3 13 22
9 Australia 6 2 3 11
10 Norway 3 2 0 5

See also[edit]


  1. ^ Bascomb, Neal. The Perfect Mile. Boston, MA: Mariner Books, 2004. Print.
  2. ^ GamesBids.com Past Olympic Host City Election Results
  3. ^ Mulvenney, Nick (7 August 2008). "Chen Chengda, China's almost Olympian". Reuters. Retrieved 8 August 2012. 
  4. ^ BBC News, "On This Day", 1952: Zatopek wins gold at Helsinki, 20 July
  5. ^ Byron, Lee; Cox, Amanda; Ericson, Matthew (August 4, 2008). "A Map of Olympic Medals". The New York Times. Retrieved February 26, 2012. 


External links[edit]

Preceded by
Summer Olympic Games

XV Olympiad (1952)
Succeeded by