Olympic Games of 1932 (Summer)

The Event International multisport event held every four years

Date July 30-August 14, 1932

Place Los Angeles, California

The 1932 Summer Olympic Games were hosted by the United States. Despite the Great Depression, the Olympics were successful both financially and competitively. Economic challenges and location reduced participation, but the athletes who attended set numerous world and Olympic records.

The 1932 Summer Olympics were held in Los Angeles, California. Of the previous nine Olympic Games, only the 1904 Games in St. Louis had been held outside Europe. Because of the Great Depression, the cost involved in traveling to Los Angeles left many nations and athletes unable to attend the Games. Almost half as many athletes attended the 1932 Games as had attended the 1928 Games held in Amsterdam. The number of countries competing fell from forty-nine to thirty-seven. Despite the drop in attendance, however, the Games were considered a great success. More than one million spectators attended the events, and the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee made a profit of more than one million dollars, the first significant profit generated during the modern Olympic era.

New Traditions

The Olympic Coliseum in Los Angeles was built in 1924 when the city was bidding for that year’s Summer Olympics. The city was not awarded the Games in 1924 or 1928 but finally won the right to host the Summer Olympics in 1932. The Olympic Coliseum was far superior in quality and scale to any other stadium that previously had been used for the Olympic Games, and the opening ceremony drew a record crowd of 100,000 people.

One reason for Los Angeles’s success in securing the Olympics involved the organizing committee promising transportation, food, and housing subsidies for all the competitors. These ideas gave rise to one of the most important innovations in Olympic history: the building of the first Olympic Village. The village housed male athletes in 550 cottages on a 250-acre plot of land in a Los Angeles suburb. Female athletes were housed in a hotel. Despite many problems, such as complaints of political and racial disturbances and fears that training secrets would be stolen, the Olympic Village proved popular, and the concept continued in subsequent Olympics.

Traditionally, the head of the host nation’s government attended the Olympic Games, but U.S. president Herbert Hoover made no appearance. In another break with tradition, the Los Angeles Olympics lasted only sixteen days. Starting in 1900 with the second modern Olympic Games, the festivities previously had stretched at least seventy-nine days. Before the 1932 Games, medals were presented with little fanfare; the victory podium on which the gold, silver, and bronze medalists received their awards made its debut in Los Angeles. China participated in the Olympics for the first time in 1932, sending a single competitor.

The 1932 Games also were the first to use stopwatches, which enabled officials to time competitions to the nearest tenth of a second. An important innovative feature of the watches was the split-seconds function, which made it possible to record both the total elapsed time and intermediate (lap) times posted by each competitor.

The Stars

The United States dominated the competition, winning forty-one gold medals; the nation with the next highest total was Italy with twelve. Leading the way for the United States was sprinter Eddie Tolan, who won gold in the 100 and 200 meters and the 4-by-100-meter relay. Sixteen world and Olympic records fell in men’s track and field alone. Diving also was a strong suit for the U.S. team, which won all twelve medals in the sport. The American women dominated swimming, winning five of six events. Swimmer Buster Crabbe, who won a gold medal in the 400-meter freestyle, went on to become an actor and star in more than one hundred films. He was best known for playing Tarzan and Flash Gordon in popular serials in the late 1930’s.

Babe Didrikson Zaharias emerged as the first female star of the Olympics. Zaharias threw the javelin 143 feet, 4 inches, to set an Olympic and world record. She won the 80-meter hurdles in world-record time and later competed in the high jump. She cleared 5 feet, 5‹¨« inches, but was penalized for diving over the bar instead of jumping feet first and had to settle for a silver medal. The high jump rule was later changed to allow the head-first jumping technique. As of 2010, Zaharias was the only athlete in Olympic history to win individual medals in running, jumping, and throwing. After the Olympics, she became one of the best female golfers in the sport’s history and was named the greatest female athlete of the half century.

Stella Walsh also was versatile and durable. Although born in Poland, she lived in the United States and won more than forty American and world titles, competing well into her forties. In the 1932 Summer Games, she competed for Poland and set a world record in the 100 meters. At the age of sixty-nine, Walsh was killed in an armed robbery. Controversy swirled when an autopsy revealed she had ambiguous genitalia and could not easily be classified as biologically male or female.

Canada sent 102 athletes, its second largest team to date, to the 1932 Olympics. Canadians won two gold medals, in high jump and bantamweight boxing. Phil Edwards, a black Canadian track star, won three bronze medals; his five total medals (including bronzes from the 1928 and 1936 Games) made him Canada’s most decorated Olympian until his feat was matched in the twenty-first century.

Finnish distance runner Paavo Nurmi, one of the biggest stars of the past three Olympics, was notably absent from the 1932 Games. He was ruled ineligible for amateur competition after receiving excessive expense funds during a 1929 trip to Germany.

Impact

The 1932 Summer Olympics were considered a great success and a model for future Olympic Games. Los Angeles’s Olympic Coliseum set the standard for venues and attendance at the Olympics. Important innovations, such as the Olympic Village and the presentation of medals at the victory podium, became mainstays of the Olympics. The Games also introduced stars such as Zaharias and Crabbe, who remained public figures for decades after their Olympic successes.

Bibliography

Cayleff, Susan. Babe Didrikson: The Greatest All-Sport Athlete. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1995. Describes how Didrikson’s athletic prowess and personality made her a celebrity from the 1930’s to 1950’s. Her achievements redefined the woman athlete and stirred debate by challenging contemporary notions of femininity.

Freedman, Russell. Babe Didrikson Zaharias: The Making of a Champion. New York: Clarion, 1999. Biography covering Didrikson’s track and field success and later career in basketball and golf.

Gifford, Clive. Summer Olympics: The Definitive Guide to the World’s Greatest Sports Celebration. Boston: Kingfisher, 2004. Complete survey of and introduction to every Summer Olympics event. Includes information on athletes’ training routines and great athletic rivalries throughout history.

Guttmann, Allen. The Olympics: A History of the Modern Games. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2002. Guttmann analyzes the political and social implications of each of the modern Olympic Games from 1896 to 2000.

Leder, Jane. Grace and Glory: A Century of Women in the Olympics. Chicago: Triumph Books, 1996. Describes how women’s athletic competition changed along with women’s roles in society from 1896 to 1996.

Miller, David. The Official History of the Olympic Games and the IOC: From Athens to Beijing, 1894-2008. Edinburgh, U.K.: Mainstream, 2008. Thorough history of the modern Games, covering major competitors and developments.