1932 Winter Olympics

III. winter Olympics

Venue:	Lake Placid ( United States )
Stadion:	Olympic Stadium Lake Placid
Opening ceremony:	February 4, 1932
Closing ceremony:	February 15, 1932
Opened by:	Franklin D. Roosevelt (Governor of New York State )
Olympic oath :	Jack Shea (athlete)
Disciplines:	7 (4 sports)
Competitions:	14th
Countries:	17th
Athletes:	252, including 21 women
← St. Moritz 1928
Garmisch-Partenkirchen 1936 →

Medal table
space	country	G	S.	B.	Ges.
1	United States	6th	4th	2	12
2	Norway	3	4th	3	10
3	Sweden	1	2	-	3
4th	Canada	1	1	5	7th
5	Finland	1	1	1	3
6th	Austria	1	1	-	2
7th	France	1	-	-	1
8th	Switzerland	-	1	-	1
9	German Empire	-	-	2	2
10	Hungary	-	-	1	1
Complete medal table

The 1932 Winter Olympics (also known as the III Winter Olympics ) were held from February 4 to 15, 1932 in Lake Placid , USA (like the 1980 Winter Games later ), with the disciplines ice hockey , speed skating , figure skating and Nordic skiing competitions and bobsleigh. As new demonstration sports, the organizers had added a dog sled race and women's speed skating to the program. Athletes from only 17 countries were able to take part because the global economic crisis left them with financial problems. The venue was chosen by the IOC from among eight candidate cities, only Montreal came from Canada , the rest were the US locations Bear Mountain , Yosemite Valley , Lake Placid, Lake Tahoe , Duluth , Minneapolis and Denver .

Sports facilities

The German engineer Stanislaus M. Zentzytzki built the Olympic bobsleigh track Mount Van Hoevenberg on behalf of the organizing committee , which was inaugurated in 1930. A ski jumping hill with a K-point of 61 meters was built for the ski jumping competitions . - For the first time there was a combined hall for figure skating and ice hockey and the three-tier winners' podium , which is still in use today , was introduced. All competitions took place directly in Lake Placid on the following facilities:

• Olympic Center - ice hockey, figure skating
• Olympic Stadium Lake Placid - cross-country skiing (start and finish), Nordic combined, ice hockey, speed skating
• Mount Van Hoevenberg Olympic bobsleigh run - bobsleigh
• MacKenzie Intervale Ski Jumping Complex - Nordic combined, ski jumping

Attendees

Countries with participating teams

Countries took part in winter games for the first time

After a record number of participants had been set four years earlier, 252 athletes from 17 nations took part in these Winter Games. Argentina, Estonia, Yugoslavia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico and the Netherlands were absent this time - no new country took part.

Europe (130 athletes from 14 nations)
Belgium  (5)  German Empire  (20)  Finland  (7)  France  (8)  Great Britain  (4)	Italy  (12)  Norway  (19)  Austria  (7)  Poland  (15)  Romania  (4)	Sweden  (12)  Switzerland  (7)  Czechoslovakia  (6)  Hungary  (4)
America (106 athletes from 2 nations)
Canada  (42)	United States  (64)
Asia (16 athletes from 1 nation)
Japan (16)
(Number of athletes)

useful information

• The games were opened by the future American President Franklin D. Roosevelt after the athletes marched into the ice rink, which had already been prepared, with a few involuntary slides. Polar aviator Richard Evelyn Byrd accepted the athlete's oath, which was spoken by US speed skater John Ames Shea .
• The 1932 Winter Olympics took place after the global economic crisis had just been overcome , which caused Lake Placid, then a city with fewer than 4,000 inhabitants, to have great financial difficulties. The President of the Organizing Committee, Godfrey Dewey, even donated the land for the bobsled run from his family property. The games eventually cost about $ 1.2 million.
• In February 1930 the organizing committee sent invitations to 65 nations in the hope that more countries than in the 1928 Games (then 25 nations with 464 athletes) would participate. However, as the global economic crisis spread, more and more Olympic committees canceled. With the North Atlantic Passenger Agreement , ship passages were 20% cheaper for Olympic participants and the American authorities waived the fees for visas, customs and taxes. The American government paid for the German ice hockey team's trip so that at least four teams (eleven in St. Moritz in 1928) could take part. Finally, 252 athletes from eleven nations took part (instead of 25 four years earlier).
• The American Eddie Eagan was the first athlete to win a gold medal at both Summer Olympics and Winter Games.
• Fewer spectators came to the Winter Games in Lake Placid in the remote Upstate New York than four years later in Garmisch-Partenkirchen alone for the opening ceremony.

Competition program

14 competitions (12 for men, 1 for women and 1 mixed competition) in 4 sports / 7 disciplines were held. That was one less discipline than in Sankt Moritz in 1928 . The changes are detailed below:

• The two-seater for men has been added to the Bob .
• Skeleton was canceled immediately after the Olympic premiere in Sankt Moritz.

Olympic sports / disciplines

• Bob total (2) = men (2)
• Ice hockey total (1) = men (1)
• Ice skating
  • Figure skating total (3) = men (1) / women (1) / mixed (1)
  • Speed ​​skating total (4) = men (4)
• Nordic skiing
  • Nordic combined total (1) = men (1)
  • Cross-country skiing total (2) = men (2)
  • Ski jumping total (1) = men (1)

Number of competitions in brackets

Time schedule

Time schedule
discipline		Thursday 04.	Fri. 05.	Sat. 06.	Sun 07.	Mon 08.	Tuesday 09.	Wed. 10.	Thursday 11.	Fri. 12.	Sat. 13.	Sun. 14.	Mon. 15.	Decision- disk- applications
		February
Opening ceremony
bob								1					1	2
ice Hockey											1			1
Ice skating	figure skating						1	1		1				3
	Speed ​​skating	2	1	1										4th
Nordic skiing	Nordic combination								1					1
	Cross-country skiing							1			1			2
	Special jumping									1				1
Closing ceremony
Demonstration competitions
Curling			1
Women speed skating						1	1	1
Dog sledding					1
decisions		2	1	1			1	3	1	2	2		1	15th
		Thursday 04.	Fri. 05.	Sat. 06.	Sun 07.	Mon 08.	Tuesday 09.	Wed. 10.	Thursday 11.	Fri. 12.	Sat. 13.	Sun. 14.	Mon. 15.
		February

During the breaks between the figure skating pair skating event, some individual runners performed a demonstration program.

Color legend

Opening ceremony

Competition day (no decisions)

Competition day (x decisions)

Closing ceremony

Problems at the events

• Bobsledding: Several accidents occurred during training because the sled was carried off the track in a sharp curve (the "zigzag curve"). The German sledges were also affected and landed outside the track, about 30–50 meters in the undergrowth. Although numerous serious injuries were recorded, the organizers did not change the course details or the regulations. Due to the prevailing thaw, the bobsleigh competitions could only be ended after the closing ceremony.
• Cross-country skiing: the 50 km competition was poorly organized, there was no snow lane or route marking, no food, no route supervision, no spectators, no ambulances.
• According to American rules, there were mass starts in speed skating and no tracks were divided. This led to numerous protests and the preferential treatment of American runners.
• Further problems arose because of scarce snow, which had to be brought in from Canada in part, because of melting ice and with the organization of such competitions in which the Americans had no chance of winning.

literature

• Karl Lennartz / Wolf Reinhardt / Ralph Schlueter: The games of the X. Olympiad 1932 in Lake Placid and Los Angeles . Agon, 2015, ISBN 978-3-89784-406-3 .
• Cigarette picture album Olympics 1932 ; Page 130 ff

Web links

Commons : 1932 Winter Olympics  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Side of the IOC to the Winter Games of 1932 (English)
• IOC website on the 1932 Winter Games (French)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Volker Kluge : Olympic Winter Games - The Chronicle. Sportverlag, Berlin 1999. Pages 94–99.
2. ^ Barney, RK, Wenn SR, Martyn SG. The International Olympic Committee and the Rise of Olympic Commercialism . Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 2002.
3. ↑ Arnd Krüger (1996). The History of the Olympic Winter Games. The Invention of a Tradition. Matti Goksör, Gerd von der Lippe, Kristian Mo (eds.): Winter Games - Warm Traditions. Oslo: Norsk Idrettshistorisk Vörening 1996, pp. 101-122.