1948 Summer Olympics / Athletics - High Jump (Women)

sport	athletics
discipline	high jump
gender	Women
Attendees	19 athletes from 10 countries
Competition location	Wembley Stadium
Competition phase	August 7, 1948
Medalists Alice Coachman ( USA )   Dorothy Tyler ( GBR )   Micheline Ostermeyer ( FRA )

The women's high jump at the 1948 Olympic Games in London was held on August 7, 1948 at Wembley Stadium . 19 athletes took part. For the first time at the Olympic Games, the number of unsuccessful attempts at the same level decided the placement.

The American Alice Coachman became Olympic champion . She won ahead of the British Dorothy Tyler and the French Micheline Ostermeyer .

Existing records

• World record : 1.71 m - Fanny Blankers-Koen ( Netherlands ), Amsterdam , on May 30, 1943
• Olympic record : 1.65 s - Jean Shiley ( USA ) / Mildred Didrikson ( USA ), Olympic final in Los Angeles , August 7, 1932

Conducting the competition

The participants ran a final round on August 7th. A previous qualification was waived.

Note: The number of failed attempts and the series of attempts have not been recorded.

Bottom line

space	Surname	nation	height	annotation
1	Alice Coachman	United States	1.68 m	OR
2	Dorothy Tyler	Great Britain	1.68 m	ORe
3	Micheline Ostermeyer	France	1.61 m
4th	Vinton Beckett	Jamaica	1.58 m
4th	Doreen Dredge	Canada	1.58 m
6th	Bertha Crowther	Great Britain	1.55 m
7th	Ilse Steinegger	Austria	1.58 m
8th	Dora Gardner	Great Britain	1.55 m
9	Anne Iversen	Denmark	1.50 m
9	Simone Ruas	France	1.50 m
11	Shirley Gordon	Canada	1.50 m
11	Carmen Phipps	Jamaica	1.50 m
11	Bernice Robinson	United States	1.50 m
14th	Triny Bourkel	Luxembourg	1.40 m
14th	Anne-Marie Colchen	France	1.40 m
14th	Emma Reed	United States	1.40 m
17th	Olga Gyarmati	Hungary	1.40 m
17th	Elizabeth Mueller	Brazil	1.40 m
19th	Elaine Silburn	Canada	1.40 m

August 7, 1948, 3:35 p.m.

The actual favorite, the world record holder Fanny Blankers-Koen , did not start in the high jump. She wanted to limit the number of her starts in London so as not to impair her chances of success in the other competitions.
The fight for the gold medal came to a head between the US jumper Alice Coachman and the British Dorothy Tyler, who had won the silver medal in Berlin in 1936 under her maiden name Odam. Both athletes jumped the Olympic record height of 1.68 m, Coachman in their first attempt, while Tyler initially had a failed attempt. The next height of 1.70 m was torn three times by both of them. Coachman became Olympic champion because of her fewer failed attempts. She was the first African American woman to win the Olympics. The American injured herself so badly during her last jump that there was no way she could have jumped any further. That means: In a play-off match without the newly introduced failed attempt rule, the British woman would have become Olympic champion - just as she did in Berlin in 1936 if there had been no play-off match at that time using the failed attempt rule that is not yet in force. Sometimes it depends on such framework conditions how medals are distributed. But Dorothy Tyler and Dorothy Odam remain their two silver medals. Micheline Ostermeyer, who had already won gold twice in the shot put and discus throw , came third.

Micheline Ostermeyer won the first French medal in the women's high jump.

literature

• Ekkehard zur Megede , The History of Olympic Athletics, Volume 2: 1948–1968, Verlag Bartels & Wernitz KG, Berlin, 1st edition 1969, p. 47

Web links

• SportsReference high jump , accessed August 24, 2017
• Official report , p. 281, engl. (PDF), accessed on August 24, 2017
• Alice Coachman 1948 First African American gold medalist , published August 5, 2015 on youtube.com, accessed August 24, 2017

Individual evidence

1. ↑ IAAF Statistics Handbook, Berlin 2009, page 644 ( Memento from June 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
2. ^ Official report "Athletic Timetable" S, 241, engl. (PDF)
3. ↑ Ekkehard zur Megede , The History of Olympic Athletics, Volume 2: 1948–1968, Verlag Bartels & Wernitz KG, Berlin, 1st edition 1969, p. 47
4. ↑ SportsReference (Eng.)