1940 Winter Olympics

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
V. Olympic Winter Games
canceled
← Garmisch-Partenkirchen 1936
Cortina d'Ampezzo 1944 →

The 5th Winter Olympic Games were to take place in Sapporo in 1940 . However, due to the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Japan returned the games to the IOC on July 16, 1938 .

On September 3, 1938, the IOC awarded the 1940 Winter Games to St. Moritz . But then there were disputes between the Swiss organizing committee and the IOC, so that St. Moritz was withdrawn from the games on June 9, 1939. Like four years before, they were awarded to Garmisch-Partenkirchen . World War II began three months later , and the Games were eventually canceled.

Conflict over the ski competitions

If the Winter Games could have taken place as planned, they might have been held without alpine skiing. There was a conflict between the IOC and the FIS about the admission of professional ski instructors to the games, as this contradicted the amateur status in the eyes of the IOC.

Planned event in Garmisch-Partenkirchen

The German delegation to the IOC offered to host the games again in Garmisch-Partenkirchen , the venue from 1936 . After Sapporo's rejection, Oslo initially applied, but the Olympic Games there would have had to take place without alpine skiing due to the different interpretations of the amateur conditions. In the vote in June 1939, the games were unanimously broadcast to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. By mid-August 1939, 14 nations had already agreed to participate, including Great Britain and France. The Olympic ski stadium was rebuilt according to plans by Arthur Holzheimer and received its current, horseshoe-shaped shape. Even after the start of the Second World War on September 1, 1939, work on expanding the sports facilities continued. Karl Ritter von Halt , the President of the Organizing Committee and IOC representative of Germany, wrote in a letter to the IOC President on September 20: “For the time being, Germany is ready to host the Winter Games if the current conflict can be ended in time. “It was not until the end of October that Adolf Hitler ordered the work to be stopped. On November 22nd, the games were officially canceled.

Scheduled competitions

The only change compared to the 1936 Winter Games was the planned inclusion of women's speed skating with four disciplines in the program. Otherwise, the planned program remained unchanged compared to 1936, insofar as an agreement between the IOC and FIS would have been reached in the case of the ski competitions.

aftermath

The 1944 Winter Olympics , which were awarded to the Italian winter sports resort of Cortina d'Ampezzo , also fell victim to the Second World War. The first post-war games were hosted in 1948 in St. Moritz, which was not damaged by the war. Cortina d'Ampezzo finally came in 1956 and Sapporo at the 1972 Winter Games . Germany has not hosted any winter games since 1936.

literature

  • George M. Constable: The XI, XII & XIII Olympiads. Berlin 1936, St. Moritz 1948 . World Sport Research & Publications, Los Angeles 1996, ISBN 1-888383-11-9 .
  • Volker Kluge : Olympic Winter Games. The Chronicle . 3rd, exp. Edition. Sportverlag, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-328-00831-4 .
  • Harald Oelrich: Sports status, world status: Sports in the area of ​​tension of German-Italian foreign policy from 1918 to 1945 . LIT Verlag, Berlin / Hamburg / Münster 2003, ISBN 3-8258-5609-7

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Arnd Krüger : Germany and the Olympic Movement (1918-1945) . In: Horst Ueberhorst (Hrsg.): Geschichte der Leibesübungen , Vol. 3/2. Bartels & Wernitz, Berlin, 1982, pp. 1026-1047.