The , officially known as the '''Games of the XIV Olympiad''', were held in
1948 at
Wembley Stadium in
London ,
England . After a hiatus of 12 years caused by the outbreak of
World War II , these were the first Summer Olympics to be held since the
1936 Summer Olympics in
Berlin . The 1940 games had been scheduled for
Tokyo , and later
Helsinki as
WWII started; no plans were made to hold games in 1944.
- With World War II in recent memory, Germany and Japan were not invited to the Games.
- Fanny Blankers-Koen was the star of the Games, winning four gold medals on the track.
- Ilona Elek ( Hungary ) and Jan Brzak ( Czechoslovakia ) successfully defended their Olympic titles they had won 12 years earlier.
- In Field Hockey , India and Pakistan first participated as independent nations, and the homeland of the sport, Great Britain, played the triple Olympic champions from India for the first time and lost.
- For the first time, Olympic diplomas were awarded to the six highest placed athletes.
- In a dramatic finish in the marathon, Belgian Étienne Gailly entered the stadium first, but was so physically drained that he could barely walk around the track. Two men passed him before he finally crossed the line.
- Duncan White of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka ) won the first medal for his country, a silver, in the 400 meter hurdles.
- Harold Sakata , who won a silver medal in Weightlifting , later went on to portray Oddjob in the James Bond film Goldfinger .
- Sweden , led by the Gre-No-Li trio, beat Yugoslavia 3-1 in the final to win the Football tournament.
See the medal winners, ordered by sport:
Note that these Olympic Games were the first time that the host nation did not win enough medals to be included in the top 10 medal winners.
