1948 London Olympics: The Austerity Games After World War II

The 1948 London Olympics, held from 29 July to 14 August 1948, were the first Summer Olympic Games since Berlin in 1936. Staged only three years after the Second World War in a Britain still under rationing, they were run on a shoestring budget and became known as the “Austerity Games”. Despite the hardships they attracted a then-record 59 nations and produced some of the best-remembered performances in Olympic history.

Background: Games interrupted

London had been chosen in 1939 to host the 1944 Olympics, but the war led to the cancellation of both the 1940 and 1944 Games. In 1946 the International Olympic Committee awarded the 1948 Games to London without a contest. Some in Britain argued that the country could not afford them while bread, meat and clothing were rationed; supporters hoped they would lift morale and show that international sport had survived.

Germany and Japan were not invited. The Soviet Union, though invited, did not take part. Many athletes came from countries still recovering from occupation and destruction, and some travelled to London with food parcels.

The political map had changed since 1936. Newly independent India and Pakistan took part as separate nations, as did countries such as Burma, Ceylon, Lebanon, Syria and Venezuela, several of them for the first time. Cold War divisions were already visible: the Soviet Union stayed away, and Eastern European teams travelled under governments newly dominated by communist parties. The Czechoslovak gymnast Marie Provazníková, president of the international women’s gymnastics committee, refused to return home after the Games, becoming one of the first Olympic defectors.

Making do

No new venues were built. The main stadium was the Empire Stadium at Wembley, built in 1923 for the British Empire Exhibition; a cinder track was laid over its greyhound circuit. Swimming took place at the nearby Empire Pool. Rowing was held at Henley-on-Thames and sailing at Torbay in Devon.

There was no Olympic village. Male competitors were housed in Royal Air Force camps at Uxbridge and West Drayton and in other military buildings, and female competitors in London colleges. Athletes received increased rations similar to those of heavy manual workers, and some teams brought their own food. The total cost was about £730,000, and the organisers reported a small profit.

The Olympic torch relay, first held in 1936, was repeated, bringing the flame from Olympia in Greece. King George VI opened the Games on 29 July before a crowd of around 80,000 in hot sunshine. On the same day, at a hospital in Buckinghamshire, Ludwig Guttmann staged the first Stoke Mandeville Games for paralysed patients.

Stars of the Games

Fanny Blankers-Koen of the Netherlands dominated women’s athletics. Aged 30 and the mother of two children, she won four gold medals: the 100 metres, the 200 metres, the 80 metres hurdles and the 4 x 100 metres relay. Women were then allowed to enter only three individual track events.

Emil Zátopek, a Czechoslovak army officer, won the 10,000 metres and took silver in the 5,000 metres behind Gaston Reiff of Belgium. His relentless running style made him famous; four years later he won three golds in Helsinki.

Bob Mathias of the United States won the decathlon aged 17, becoming the youngest man to win an Olympic athletics title.

Other notable winners included Alice Coachman of the United States, who won the high jump and became the first Black woman to win an Olympic gold medal, and Arthur Wint, who won the 400 metres for Jamaica. The Hungarian shooter Károly Takács won the rapid-fire pistol event with his left hand after a grenade injury had disabled his right. India, independent for less than a year, won the hockey gold by beating Great Britain 4–0 in the final, and Sweden won the football tournament, beating Yugoslavia 3–1.

By the numbers

Timeline

• 1946: The IOC confirms London as host of the 1948 Games.
• 1948, 17 July: The Olympic flame is lit at Olympia, Greece.
• 1948, 29 July: King George VI opens the Games at Wembley.
• 1948, 30 July: Emil Zátopek wins the 10,000 metres.
• 1948, 12 August: India wins the hockey final against Great Britain.
• 1948, 14 August: The Games close.

Legacy

The 1948 Games proved that the Olympic movement had survived the war, and they set a modest model that contrasted with the political spectacle of the Berlin Olympics of 1936. They also marked the start of the Olympics as a television event. When London hosted again in 2012, organisers often recalled the spirit of 1948.

Why it matters

The Austerity Games showed that the Olympics could be held with borrowed buildings, rationed food and a small budget. Coming soon after the war, they brought together countries recently occupied, newly independent states such as India, and nations that had fought on opposite sides, and gave the world new sporting heroes.