1952 Summer Olympics: Map

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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 given the 1940 Summer Olympics, which were cancelled due to World War II.

Host city selection

Helsinki was chosen as the host city over bids from Amsterdam

and five American cities: Chicago

, Detroit

, Los Angeles

, Minneapolis

and Philadelphia

, at the 40th IOC Session on June 21, 1947, in Stockholm

, Sweden

.

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

1952 Summer Olympics Bidding Results
City	NOC Name	Round 1	Round 2
Helsinki		14	15
Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota		4	5
Los Angeles , California		4	5
Amsterdam		3	3
Detroit, Michigan		2	-
Chicago , Illinois		1	-
Philadelphia , Pennsylvania		-	-

Highlights

Paavo Nurmi and the Olympic Flame

To the enjoyment of the Finnish crowd, the Olympic Flame was lit by two Finnish heroes, runners Paavo Nurmi and Hannes Kolehmainen.
For the first time, a team from the Soviet Union participated in the Olympics. The first gold medal for the USSR was won by Nina Romashkova in the women's Discus Throwing event, and the Soviet women's gymnastics team won the first of its eight consecutive gold medals.
Israel made its Olympic debut. The Jewish state had been unable to participate in the 1948 Games because of its War of Independence. A previous Palestine Mandate team had boycotted the 1936 Games in protest of the Nazi regime.
The Republic of China (Chinese Taipei/Taiwan), listed as "China (Formosa)", withdrew from the Games on July 20, in protest of the allowing of the People's Republic of China's men and women to compete.
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 in style, 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. Only West German athletes took part, from the Federal Republic of Germany and the Saarland, which joined the FRG after 1955. 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 5,000m, 10,000m 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.

Sports

Demonstration sports

Participating nations

Participating nations.

Pictured in blue are nations participating for the first time.

Yellow dot: Helsinki

A total of 69 nations participated in these Games, up from 59 in the 1948 Games. Twelve nations made their first Olympic appearance in 1952: The Bahamas