Olympic Winter Games 1936 / Nordic skiing

Nordic skiing at the IV Winter Olympics
information
venue	Garmisch-Partenkirchen
Competition venue	Olympic ski stadium Great Olympic hill
Nations	22nd
Athletes	177 (177 men)
date	6-15 February 1936
decisions	5
← Lake Placid 1932 St. Moritz 1948 →

At the IV Olympic Winter Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1936 , five competitions in Nordic skiing took place. This was also the 13th Nordic World Ski Championships . In addition to Olympic medals, world championship medals were also awarded. The only exception was the Nordic Combined, in which there were only Olympic medals. The venues were the Olympic Ski Stadium and the Great Olympic Hill on Gudiberg . The cross-country relay was new to the Olympic program.

As in the previous games and the World Championships, the athletes from the Scandinavian countries completely dominated the action. They shared all the medals among themselves, in the individual disciplines no athlete from other nations managed to place in the top six. The fourth place in the cross-country relay for Italy was the best that came out for athletes from non-Scandinavian countries.

Balance sheet

Medal table

space	country				total
1	Norway	2	3	2	7th
2	Sweden	2	2	2	6th
3	Finland	1	-	1	2

Medalist

Cross-country skiing

competitor	gold	silver	bronze
18 km	Erik Larsson	Oddbjørn Hagen	Pekka Niemi
50 km	Elis Wiklund	Axel Wikström	Nils-Joel Englund
4 × 10 km relay	Kalle Jalkanen , Klaes Karppinen , Matti Lähde , Sulo Nurmela	Sverre Brodahl , Oddbjørn Hagen , Olaf Hoffsbakken , Bjarne Iversen	John Berger , Arthur Häggblad , Erik Larsson , Martin Matsbo

Ski jumping

competitor	gold	silver	bronze
Special jumping	Birger Ruud	Sven Selånger	Reidar Andersen

Nordic combination

competitor	gold	silver	bronze
singles	Oddbjørn Hagen	Olaf Hoffsbakken	Sverre Brodahl

Cross-country skiing

18 km

space	country	athlete	Time (h)
1	SWE	Erik-August Larsson	1:14:38
2	NOR	Oddbjørn Hagen	1:15:33
3	FIN	Pekka Niemi	1: 16.59
4th	SWE	Martin Matsbo	1:17:02
5	NOR	Olaf Hoffsbakken	1:17:37
6th	NOR	Arne Rustadstuen	1:18:13
7th	FIN	Sulo Nurmela	1:18:20
8th	SWE	Arthur Haggblad	1:18:55
9	NOR	Bjarne Iversen	1:18:56
10	TCH	Lukáš Mihalák	1:19:01
18th	GER	Walter Motz	1:21:20
20th	GER	Georg von Kaufmann	1:22:39
26th	SUI	August Sonderegger	1:24:27
27	GER	Anton Zeller	1:24:32
28	AUT	Harald Bosio	1:24:39
29	GER	Friedl Däuber	1:24:57
31	SUI	Willi Bernath	1:25:12
36	AUT	Hans Jamnig	1:26:20
39	AUT	Fred Roessner	1:27:05
40	SUI	Adolf Freiburghaus	1:27:08
41	AUT	Erich Gallwitz	1:27:28
51	SUI	Eduard Müller	1:32:04

Date: February 12, 1936, 10:00 a.m.
75 participants in 22 countries, 72 of them in the ranking.

This 18 km cross-country skiing was also the first part of the Nordic combined. The route led consistently on northern slopes with excellent snow conditions. It went east towards Kaltenbrunn , then along the Kanker . There were always ascents and descents, the main climb was already after the turning point at kilometer 9, where it went up to Wamberg at kilometer 11.5 above Kaltenbrunn . The highest point (1020 m) was in a forest after 12.5 km. In the further course there were a few descents, one of them very steep, which you could not take at full speed. There was another ascent - and after crossing a last slope and a wooden bridge, the stadium entered the stadium with a short run. The trail was laid out by the former German ski champion Martin Neuner . It had snowed lightly on the morning of race day, but track teams completely polished away the fresh snow in the morning hours. At the start at 10 a.m. the thermometer in the ski stadium showed approx. 0 ° C. Towards the end of the competition it thawed in the valley floor, but on the northern slopes where the route ran, the increasing warming had no effect.

The expected Scandinavian dominance occurred, with the times achieved by the top runners being a lot below the experts' estimates of one hour and 20 minutes. After the Norwegian dominance in 1924 and 1928, however, as in 1932, there was a surprising Swedish victory. Once again it was the runners from Czechoslovakia with places 10 and 11 who stood out much better than the Italians in the non-Scandinavian wrestling. The Germans had made progress in recent years, but their hopes of becoming the best Central Europeans were not fulfilled. The Italians knew that they had carried out unsurpassed preparation over the past two years, which was, however, also a financial question - and Switzerland could not keep up here, whose runners ranked in line with expectations.

50 km

space	country	athlete	Time (h)
1	SWE	Elis Wiklund	3:30:11
2	SWE	Axel Wikström	3:33:20
3	SWE	Nils-Joel Englund	3:34:10
4th	SWE	Hjalmar Bergström	3:35:50
5	FIN	Klaes Karppinen	3:39:33
6th	NOR	Arne Tuft	3:41:18
7th	FIN	Frans Heikkinen	3:42:44
8th	FIN	Pekka Niemi	3:41:18
9	TCH	Cyril Musil	3:46:12
10	YUG	Franc Smolej	3:47:40
24	GER	Matthias Wörndle	4:03:33
25th	GER	Fritz Gaiser	4:05:44
30th	GER	Josef Ponn	4:13:12
32	GER	Erich Marx	4:25:48

Date: February 15, 1936, 8:00 a.m.
36 participants from 11 countries, 34 of them in the evaluation.

4 × 10 km relay

space	Country / athlete	time
1	Finland Sulo Nurmela Klaes Karppinen Matti Lähde Kalle Jalkanen	2:41:33 h 42:34 min 39:56 min 39:49 min 39:14 min
2	Norway Oddbjørn Hagen Olaf Hoffsbakken Sverre Brodahl Bjarne Iversen	2:41:39 h 41:32 min 39:33 min 39:52 min 40:42 min
3	Sweden John Berger Erik-August Larsson Arthur Häggblad Martin Matsbo	2:43:03 h 42:49 min 39:39 min 40:34 min 40:01 min
4th	Italy Giulio Gerardi Severino Menardi Vincenzo Demetz Giovanni Kasebacher	2:50:05 h 43:49 min 40:59 min 41:51 min 43:16 min
5	Czechoslovakia Cyril Musil Gustl Berauer Lukáš Mihalák František Šimůnek	2:51:56 h 45:50 min 42:14 min 41:27 min 42:25 min
6th	German Empire Friedl Däuber Willy Bogner sr. Herbert Leupold Anton Zeller	2:54:54 h 49:22 min 41:29 min 41:37 min 42:26 min
7th	Poland Michał Górski Marian Woyna-Orlewicz Stanisław Karpiel Bronisław Czech	2: 58.50 h 46:37 min 42:55 min 44:35 min 44:43 min
8th	Austria Erich Gallwitz Fred Rößner Hans Baumann Harald Bosio	3: 02.48 h 49:19 min 45:00 min 45:13 min 43:16 min

Date: February 10, 1936, 9:00 a.m.
16 squadrons at the start, 15 of them in the ranking

Around 6,000 spectators were present; it was cold, windy weather with light drifting snow. For the first three places of the 16 relays (Switzerland did not name) only the Scandinavian nations came into question, which was then also shown in the time difference of 7: 2 minutes between bronze and fourth place, with the performance of the Italians also as was great to watch. The expected duel between Italy and Germany did not take place because starting runner Friedl Däuber had made the wrong choice of wax, so that the home team fell behind with rank 10. While Italy's starter Gerardi handed over to third place (2:27 behind the leading Oddbjørn Hagen), Däuber was 7:50 behind. The second German, Willy Bogner sr. , ran fifth best time (the gap to the best man on this section, Hoffsbakken, was not quite 2 minutes). Herbert Leupold also ran fifth time, leaving Demetz 14 seconds behind. The German cross-country champion Anton Zeller , 50 seconds better than Kasebacher, brought the German team to sixth place.

Contrary to expectations, Austria asserted itself ahead of the French, of whom more had been expected. Turkey was already at the bottom after the mass start; her fourth runner Mahmut Şevket had to retire due to injury. The duel for gold did not take place until the fourth stage, with Iversen leaving the stadium with a large lead over Jalkanen - and contrary to expectations, the Finnish team did not see the situation as hopeless because they knew Jalkanen was strong. Soon reports of the Finn's successful catch-up came over the loudspeaker. At the third checkpoint he was in tow from Iversen. On the way back to the stadium, the Finn was already ahead and crossed the finish line with a lead of around ten ski lengths.

Special jumping

space	country	athlete	Widths (m)	Points
1	NOR	Birger Ruud	75.0 / 74.5	232.0
2	SWE	Sven Selånger	76.0 / 76.0	230.5
3	NOR	Reidar Andersen	74.0 / 75.0	228.9
4th	NOR	Kåre Walberg	73.5 / 72.0	227.0
5	POLE	Stanislaw Marusarz	73.0 / 75.5	221.6
6th	FIN	Lauri Valonen	73.5 / 67.0	219.4
7th	JPN	Masaji Iguro	74.5 / 72.5	218.2
8th	NOR	Arnholdt Kongsgård	74.5 / 66.0	217.7
9	FIN	Väinö Tiihonen	71.5 / 70.0	215.3
10	GER	Hans Marr	71.5 / 69.0	214.2
12	GER	Kurt Koerner	70.0 / 71.5	209.3
17th	GER	Franz Haslberger	64.0 / 67.0	204.6
18th	GER	Paul Kraus	62.5 / 62.5	204.4
19th	AUT	Josef Bradl	64.0 / 70.5	204.0
	SUI	Richard Buhler	63.0 / 63.0	204.0
25th	AUT	Hans Mariacher	65.5 / 69.0	201.5
26th	AUT	Rudolf Rieger	68.0 / 67.5	200.4
19th	SUI	Marcel Raymond	64.0 / 68.5	197.3
34	SUI	Reto Badrutt	64.5 / 65.0	192.2
36	AUT	Franz Aschenwald	64.5 / 55.0	185.6

Date: February 16, 1936, 9:00 a.m.
48 participants in 14 countries, 47 of them in the ranking.
K point : 80 m

This discipline is also known as jumping or ski jumping .

Nordic combination

space	country	athlete	Points running	Points jumping	points total
1	NOR	Oddbjørn Hagen	240.0	190.3	430.3
2	NOR	Olaf Hoffsbakken	227.8	192.0	419.8
3	NOR	Sverre Brodahl	225.5	182.6	408.1
4th	FIN	Lauri Valonen	178.6	222.6	401.2
5	TCH	František Šimůnek	219.0	175.3	394.3
6th	NOR	Bernt Østerkløft	205.1	188.7	393.8
7th	POLE	Stanislaw Marusarz	184.4	208.9	393.3
	FIN	Timo Murama	187.5	205.8	393.3
9	TCH	Johann Lahr	185.8	201.6	387.4
10	FIN	Niilo Nikunen	192.2	191.6	383.8
12	GER	Willy Bogner sr.	191.2	190.3	381.5
13	GER	Josef Gumpold	190.4	190.3	380.7
15th	AUT	Hubert Köstinger	186.0	189.2	375.2
17th	AUT	Hans Baumann	198.5	173.6	372.1
18th	GER	Fidel Wagner	189.2	182.7	371.9
21st	SUI	Oswald Julen	183.0	184.3	367.3
22nd	SUI	Willi Bernath	185.7	180.7	366.4
23	GER	Toni Eisgruber	152.8	212.1	364.9
25th	AUT	Markus Maier	173.7	188.2	361.9
30th	SUI	Ernst Berger	175.2	174.9	350.1
33	AUT	Walter Delle Karth	125.8	207.4	333.2

Cross-country skiing: February 12, 1936, 10:00 a.m.
Ski jumping: February 13, 1936, 11:00 a.m.
51 participants from 16 countries, 48 ​​of them in the ranking.

The number of visitors to the combined ski jumping event, which took place in the best weather conditions, exceeded that of the men's slalom at 70,000. This is probably also because Adolf Hitler , Reichswehr Minister Werner von Blomberg , Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Göring were among the audience. Before the actual competition, there were trial jumps by special jumpers. The three leading Norwegians after running, especially Hagen and Hoffsbakken, could be sure of their medals and risked little. Brohdal had to be more careful, who was only six points ahead of fourth-placed Šimůnek. But he did not improve, while the fifth placed Severino Menardi slipped over the hill and fell back to 20th place in the overall standings. In a class of his own was the Finn Lauri Valonen , who showed the longest jumps and climbed from 26th to fourth place. For many participants, the gap between the performance in cross-country skiing and that in jumping (and vice versa) was too wide, so the second and fourth place in this second part of the competition did not help the German Toni Eisgruber and the Austrian Walter Delle Karth .

literature

• Cross-country skiing at the Olympic Winter Games: List of Olympic champions in cross-country skiing. Edited by the Bucher Group, General Books Verlag, 2010, 188 pages.

Web links

• Cross-country skiing at the 1936 Winter Olympics in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Ski jumping at the 1936 Winter Olympics in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Nordic combined at the 1936 Winter Olympics in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Official report of the 1936 Winter Olympics (PDF; 29.6 MB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ «Sweden, Finland and Norway at the top in cross-country skiing». In: Sport Zürich, February 13, 1936, p. 1/2.
2. ↑ ^{a b} «Finland wrestles Norway in the relay race». In: Sport Zürich, February 12, 1936, p. 1/2.
3. ↑ «Combined jumping in front of 70,000 spectators». In: Sport Zürich, February 14, 1936, p. 1.