1948 Summer Olympics medal table

A black and white photo of a track athlete wearing the number 23 running.
Delfo Cabrera of Argentina winning the marathon at the 1948 Olympics[1]

The 1948 Summer Olympics (also known as the Games of the XIV Olympiad) was an international multi-sport event held from July 29 through August 14, 1948, in London, United Kingdom. It was the first Olympic Games to take place in twelve years, due to the Second World War (and was known informally as "The Austerity Games" - largely due to countries having to bring their own food due to shortages in Britain), with London being chosen as the host city in March 1946. London had previously hosted the 1908 Summer Olympics, and was due to have hosted the event in 1944.[1] A record 59 nations were represented by 4,104 athletes, 3,714 men and 385 women, in 19 sport disciplines. Following the Second World War, Germany and Japan remained under military occupation and had not yet formed their National Olympic Committee,[2] and so were not invited.[3] The only major Axis power to take part in the Games was Italy.[2] The Soviet Union also did not form a National Olympic Committee and was ineligible to be invited to compete. However, they did send observers and competed in the 1952 Summer Olympics.[4] Following the threats of a boycott from Arab countries should an Israeli team fly their flag at the opening ceremony, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) excluded Israel from the Games on a technicality.[5]

The most successful nation was the United States, winning the most gold (38), silver (27) and bronze (19) medals. By comparison, the European nations were still impoverished from the Second World War with many still living with severe rationing on food and other essentials and in this environment Great Britain, the host nation, although winning only three gold medals, and twenty-three medals overall, was seen as successful.[1] Several countries participated for the first time, including Burma, Ceylon, Lebanon, Puerto Rico and Syria.[6] The Olympic medals themselves were the standard Trionfo design used for the Olympic medals between 1928 and 1968.[7]

It wasn't until 2010 that Belgian Eugene van Roosbroeck received his gold medal for his part in the cycling road race as there was no podium for winners following the race and the team returned to Belgium two days after the event having received no medals.[8]

Medal table

A bronze colored medal with a woman wearing a toga on the left side. On the right there is Cyrillic writing.
A bronze medal from the 1980 Summer Olympics featuring a similar design on the obverse to that of the 1948 medals[9]

This is the full table of the medal count of the 1948 Summer Olympics, based on the medal count of the IOC. These rankings sort by the number of gold medals earned by a nation. The number of silver medals is taken into consideration next and then the number of bronze medals. If, after the above, countries are still tied, equal ranking is given and they are listed alphabetically. This information is provided by the IOC. However, the IOC does not recognize or endorse any ranking system.[10]

In the gymnastics events there were three athletes placed first for the men's pommel horse, with Paavo Aaltonen, Veikko Huhtanen and Heikki Savolainen all receiving gold medals for Finland in the same event, while no silver or bronze medals were handed out. Meanwhile, in the men's vault, three athletes finished in joint third place and so were awarded a bronze medal each, resulting in five medals being handed out for that one event.[1]

Mexico and Peru won their first gold medal.

  Host nation (Great Britain)

Rank Nation Gold Silver Bronze Total
1  United States (USA) 38 27 19 84
2  Sweden (SWE) 16 11 17 44
3  France (FRA) 10 6 13 29
4  Hungary (HUN) 10 5 12 27
5  Italy (ITA) 8 11 8 27
6  Finland (FIN) 8 7 5 20
7  Turkey (TUR) 6 4 2 12
8  Czechoslovakia (TCH) 6 2 3 11
9  Switzerland (SUI) 5 10 5 20
10  Denmark (DEN) 5 7 8 20
11  Netherlands (NED) 5 2 9 16
12  Great Britain (GBR) 3 14 6 23
13  Argentina (ARG) 3 3 1 7
14  Australia (AUS) 2 6 5 13
15  Belgium (BEL) 2 2 3 7
16  Egypt (EGY) 2 2 1 5
17  Mexico (MEX) 2 1 2 5
18  South Africa (RSA) 2 1 1 4
19  Norway (NOR) 1 3 3 7
20  Jamaica (JAM) 1 2 0 3
21  Austria (AUT) 1 0 3 4
22  India (IND) 1 0 0 1
 Peru (PER) 1 0 0 1
24  Yugoslavia (YUG) 0 2 0 2
25  Canada (CAN) 0 1 2 3
26  Portugal (POR) 0 1 1 2
 Uruguay (URU) 0 1 1 2
28  Ceylon (CEY) 0 1 0 1
 Cuba (CUB) 0 1 0 1
 Spain (ESP) 0 1 0 1
 Trinidad and Tobago (TRI) 0 1 0 1
32  South Korea (KOR) 0 0 2 2
 Panama (PAN) 0 0 2 2
34  Brazil (BRA) 0 0 1 1
 Iran (IRI) 0 0 1 1
 Poland (POL) 0 0 1 1
 Puerto Rico (PUR) 0 0 1 1
Total (37 NOCs) 138 135 138 411

References

Specific
  1. 1 2 3 4 "The Official Report of the Organising Committee for the XIV Olympiad" (PDF). The Organising Committee for the XIV Olympiad. 1948. Archived (PDF) from the original on 16 July 2011. Retrieved 2011-08-28.
  2. 1 2 Findling (1996): p. 111
  3. ↑ Findling (1996): p. 103
  4. ↑ Findling (1996): p. 104
  5. ↑ Findling (1996): p. 105
  6. ↑ "London 1948". Olympic.org. Retrieved 2011-08-28.
  7. ↑ "Winner's Medal for the 1948 Olympic Games in London". Olympic.org. Retrieved 2011-08-28.
  8. ↑ MacLeary, John (8 June 2010). "Belgian cycling team finally receive gold medals for 1948 London Olympic Games". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 20 September 2011.
  9. ↑ "Aleksandr Dityatin (USSR)". Olympic.org. Retrieved 2011-08-29.
  10. ↑ Shipley, Amy (2008-08-25). "China's Show of Power". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2011-08-28.
General

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