1952 Summer Olympics / Athletics - Long Jump (Men)

sport	athletics
discipline	Long jump
gender	Men
Attendees	27 athletes from 19 countries
Competition location	Helsinki Olympic Stadium
Competition phase	July 21, 1952
Medalist Jerome Biffle ( USA )   Meredith Gourdine ( USA )   Ödön Földessy ( HUN )

The men's long jump at the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki was held on July 21, 1952. 27 athletes took part.

Olympic champion was the American Jerome Biffle . He won ahead of his compatriot Meredith Gourdine and the Hungarian Ödön Földessy .

Existing records

World record	8.13 m	Jesse Owens ( USA )	Ann Arbor , USA	May 25, 1935
Olympic record	8.06 m		Berlin , Germany	4th August 1936

Note: The Olympic record was officially set at 8.06 m and Jesse Owens was the record holder, despite an irregular tailwind when he jumped.

Conducting the competition

The participants competed in two groups for a qualifying round on July 21, the qualifying distance was 7.20 meters. Should fewer than twelve athletes manage the required distance, the final starter field would be filled to twelve jumpers according to the best distance achieved. The results achieved in the qualification were not counted for the final.

In the final, all participants initially had three attempts. The six best athletes were then allowed to make three more attempts.

Note: The directly qualified athletes are highlighted in light blue, those who qualified over the next best distance are highlighted in light green.

Time schedule

July 21, 10 a.m .: Qualification
July 21, 4.10 p.m .: Final

qualification

Olympic Champion Jerome Biffle (USA)

Date: July 21, 1952, 10 a.m. The order of the test series is unknown.

Group A

space	Surname	nation	Expanse	annotation
01	Meredith Gourdine	United States	7.41 m
02	Jerome Biffle	United States	7.40 m
03	George Brown	United States	7.32 m
04th	Ödön Földessy	Hungary	7.25 m
05	Ary de Sá	Brazil	7.24 m
06th	Paul Faucher	France	7.10 m
07th	Leonid Grigoryev	Soviet Union	7.09 m
08th	Anton Breder	Saarland	6.88 m
09	Brígido Iriarte	Venezuela	6.82 m
10	Henryk Grabowski	Poland	6.77 m
11	Nikolai Anriushchenko	Soviet Union	6.74 m
ogV	Avni Akgun	Turkey	without space

Group B

space	Surname	nation	Expanse	annotation
01	Neville Price	South African Union	7.36 m
02	Henk Visser	Netherlands	7.21 m
03	Masaji Tajima	Japan	7.13 m
04th	Karl-Erik Israelsson	Sweden	7.10 m
05	Pentti Snellman	Finland	7.09 m
05	Jorma Valtonen	Finland	7.09 m
07th	Carlos Vera	Chile	7.07 m
08th	Felix Würth	Austria	6.99 m
09	Sylvanus Williams	Nigeria	6.98 m
10	Jorma Valkama	Finland	6.97 m
11	Karim Olowu	Nigeria	6.96 m
12	Geraldo de Oliveira	Brazil	6.71 m
13	Patrick Leane	Australia	6.40 m
14th	Kamtorn Sanidwong	Thailand	5.31 m
ogV	Baldadaş Mədətov	Soviet Union	without space

Finale and final result

space	Surname	nation	1st attempt	Second attempt	3. Attempt	4th attempt	5th attempt	6th attempt	Bottom line	annotation
1	Jerome Biffle	United States	7.21 m	x	7.57 m	7.49 m	7.36 m	7.51 m	7.57 m
2	Meredith Gourdine	United States	7.38 m	6.58 m	7.53 m	x	x	x	7.53 m
3	Ödön Földessy	Hungary	7.04 m	7.23 m	x	7.17 m	7.30 m	7.12 m	7.30 m
4th	Ary de Sá	Brazil	7.15 m	6.77 m	7.06 m	7.22 m	7.20 m	7.23 m	7.23 m
5	Jorma Valtonen	Finland	x	7.06 m	7.16 m	x	x	6.97 m	7.16 m
6th	Leonid Grigoryev	Soviet Union	x	7.14 m	6.92 m	5.55 m	x	6.67 m	7.14 m
7th	Karl-Erik Israelsson	Sweden	x	x	7.10 m	not in the final of the six best jumpers			7.10 m
8th	Paul Faucher	France	x	6.96 m	7.02 m				7.02 m
9	Pentti Snellman	Finland	x	6.88 m	7.02 m				7.02 m
10	Masaji Tajima	Japan	x	7.00 m	x				7.00 m
11	Neville Price	South African Union	6.40 m	x	x				6.40 m
ogV	George Brown	United States	x	x	x				without space
	Henk Visser	Netherlands

Date: July 21, 1952, 4:10 p.m.

The US jumper George Brown was the top favorite. In the final, however, he had three failed attempts and was eliminated. The best three jumpers in the qualification in the morning were Meredith Gourdine and Jerome Biffle from the USA and the South African Neville Price. However, Price had injured himself in qualifying and reached only 6.40 m in this final and came eleventh. Biffle - 7.57 m - and Gourdine - 7.53 m - each achieved their bests in the third attempt. They were only four centimeters apart, but with these not necessarily outstanding results they were still significantly better than the rest of the field. The Hungarian Ödön Földessy won the bronze medal with just 7.30 m.

Despite the good jumping ability, the level of this competition fell significantly compared to most other competitions.

In the twelfth Olympic final, Jerome Biffle won the eleventh gold medal for the USA. Biffle and Meredith Gourdine achieved the USA's seventh double victory in this discipline.

Ödön Földessy won the first medal for Hungary in the long jump.

Note: The respective best size is printed in bold.

literature

• Ekkehard zur Megede , The History of Olympic Athletics, Volume 2: 1948–1968, Verlag Bartels & Wernitz KG, Berlin, 2nd edition 1970, p. 91f

Web links

• SportsReference Long Jump , accessed September 27, 2017
• Official report p. 312f, engl. (PDF), accessed on September 27, 2017
• Jerome Biffle 1952 Olympics , published July 4, 2008 on youtube.com, accessed September 27, 2017

Individual evidence

1. ↑ IAAF Statistics Handbook, Berlin 2009, page 556 ( Memento from June 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Ekkehard zur Megede , The History of Olympic Athletics, Volume 2: 1948–1968, Verlag Bartels & Wernitz KG, Berlin, 1st edition 1969, p. 207
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Official report p. 266, engl. (PDF)
4. ↑ SportsReference (Eng.)