As the countdown for the Paris Summer Olympics has begun and the excitement for the international extravaganza of athletic prowess mounts, few will now remember a past games that had a rather more frugal approach to the sporting proceedings. Compared to the multi-millions spent on the current games the 1948 London Olympics was the make-do-and-mend alternative that has been labelled by some as the ‘Austerity Olympics’.
It was only three short years since the Second World War came to a climatic conclusion and the world was recovering from the devastation and suffering it had endured, that the next summer Olympics was planned. The last games had been held in Nazi Germany in 1936 under the shadow of the swastika and Hitler’s plans for Aryan superiority (which would backfire in poetic justice, as an African American athlete named Jessie Owens would clear up on the track events and win four gold medals).
Now it was time to dust off the Olympic rings and stage the 1948 Olympics in the hope it would produce a unity and cathartic experience for all who took part and attended.
London was war-ravaged and rationing was still in effect, but there was hope, and a can-do attitude that would tie in with the Olympic ethos. What was lacking was money, with a budget of just £761,688 around £34 million in today’s money compared to a whopping €4.397 billion set aside for the 2024 Paris Games, things were going to be tight.
Cutbacks would have to be implemented, and in very British style, the ‘purse strings’ were indeed tightened. First on the list, no new buildings were to be erected. The Olympians would just have to make do with what was left post-Blitz. Luckily, Wembley Stadium had survived the war and would be repurposed for the games. Originally it had been built in 1923 for the ‘British Empire Exhibition’ and was mostly used for hosting football finals and greyhound racing. The track was dug up and coal cinders laid down, donated by the helpful residents of the town of Leicester from their coal fires. The Empress Hall Kensington, originally a theatre and home of London’s ‘Ice Spectaculars’ was used for gymnastics, wrestling, and boxing.
Next was the lack of accommodation. There would be no Olympic village where athletes could enjoy the luxury of been housed together in near-walking distance of the events. Prisoner of war camps were suggested as a homely alternative but luckily this was vetoed and RAF bases and college campuses were used instead. Buses and the underground were used to transport the athletes backwards and fourth from their makeshift lodgings.
Food was another issue, what with the mass shortages and rationing, after athletes complained of only receiving the meagre allowance of 2,600 calories a day as was the ration, it was raised to a more generous allowance reserved for the nation’s hard labourers, of over 3,900. Countries were encouraged to bring their own food and teams turned up with a variety of national dishes which resulted in somewhat of a potluck world food fair scenario. The Americans landed with their steaks and ice cream, Denmark sent 160,000 eggs, China included bamboo shoots and shrimp, and the Dutch came with crates of fruits and vegetables.
British Athletes were informed they would have to sew their own shorts with the materials provided, though a free pair of underwear would be provided. Towels were optional, bring your own or hire them for a small fee. Even with the necessitous nature of the uniforms, British Vogue did attend the event and made a feature of the games and commented in the editorial
“Whatever the fortunes of our athletes, we who watch can show that British spectator sports clothes are world winners.”
The result of the hardship was an all-in-together attitude that saw the spirit of unity and cooperation which had been prevalent during the hardest days of the war. Countries donated equipment. Switzerland provided the gymnastic equipment, Dunlop the tyres for the cycling competition, Canada the wood from pine trees for the diving boards, and Finland even brought a wooden sauna that they situated in Richmond Park. Though the conditions would seem somewhat penurious compared to today’s standards, there were some firsts in the history of the Olympics. It was the first time the Games would be televised, though it was to a limited audience as very few people actually owned television sets.
The photo finish was also to make its debut, and just in the nick of time as the two American 100mm sprinters Barney Ewell, and Harrison Dillard both clocked a time of 10.3 seconds. The photo finish concluded Dillard had won by a whisker. Though there were some technical advances in the games, the arts would suffer. Since 1912 Olympians had competed in creative events such as painting, sculpture, architecture, literature and music, but that would be the last Olympics that would represent creative fields.
The games opened on the 29th of July, despite some initial ambivalent attitudes by a percentage of the population, which The London Evening Standard would report in 1947: “The average range of enthusiasm for the games stretches from lukewarm to dislike”.
Fifty-nine nations were represented by over 4,000 thousand athletes, 390 women and 3,714 men in 136 medal events. The scoreboard towering over the games read, “The important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part. The Essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.” Some of the highlights would include the American Bob Mathias dubbed the boy wonder of the decathlon. Mathias, a 17-year-old sporting prodigy had only taken up the sport three months earlier. He won gold and became the youngest recipient of the medal at that time.
The feat was made even harder by the fact that the rain had set in, making the cinder-packed track turn into a quagmire. If this wasn’t bad enough the stadium had no floodlights installed, so when the gloom turned to darkness, the only way to light the event was to line up a group of cars and illuminate the athletes with the main beam of the headlights.
In the High Jump competition, Alice Coachman would become the first African American woman to win a gold medal at an Olympic games, leaping a massive 5 feet, 6 1/8 inches for a new world record. Her achievements would open the door for other women of colour in the future hoping to become athletes and make the American team, she later said.
“If I had gone to the games and failed, there wouldn’t be anyone to follow in my footsteps. It encouraged the rest of the women to work harder and fight harder.” – The New York Times.
The star of the games would be a Dutch track and field athlete named Fanny Blankers-Koen with the dubious moniker of the ‘Flying Housewife’. The mother of two had been told to ‘stay at home with the children’ and that she was too old to compete at 30. She went on to win 4 gold medals and become the most successful athlete at the games. Even more amazing was that she was 3 months pregnant at the time.
The 1948 Olympic games would be singular for another reason however. It would be the first time the Paralympic games would be included, beginning as a small event for disabled war veterans at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, 60 miles outside of London. A German neurologist, Sir Ludwig Guttman was looking for a way to help rehabilitate the paraplegic patients of his ward. Sixteen ex-servicemen and women took part in an archery event on the grounds of the hospital. That event grew year upon year until 75 years later, we have the Paralympics as we know it today.
The United States would prevail as victors with 38 gold medals with Great Britain coming in at 12th place. In a time before extravagance, glitz (and corruption) would descend over proceedings, the 1948 London Olympics showed the spirit of union, helping to heal some wounds and move on from the ashes of war, showing the world what a nation and its people were capable of with a bit of spit and polish and a make-do philosophy.
