The , officially known as the '''Games of the X Olympiad''', were held in
1932 in
Los Angeles ,
California ,
United States . No other cities made a bid to host these Olympics. Held during the worldwide
Great Depression , many nations and athletes were unable to pay for the trip to Los Angeles. Fewer than half the number of participants from the
1928 Summer Olympics in
Amsterdam competed in 1932. US President
Herbert Hoover did not attend the Games, becoming the first sitting head of government to not appear at an Olympics hosted in that country.
1
The organizing committee put no record of the finances of the Games in their report, though contemporary newspapers reported the Games had made a profit of
US$ 1,000,000.
- An Olympic Village was built for the first time, occupied by the male athletes. Female athletes were housed at the Chapman Park Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard.
- The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum was known in 1932 as ''Olympic Stadium''.
- Tenth Street, a major thoroughfare in Los Angeles, was renamed Olympic Boulevard in honor of the Games.
- Babe Didrikson won two gold medals in the Javelin and the hurdles event, and competed in a jump-off for a third in the high jump. Her technique in the jump-off was ruled illegal, leaving Didrikson with second place.
- In Field Hockey , only three nations took part. The host nation lost both matches, 1-24 to India and 2-9 to Japan , but still won a ''bronze medal''.
- Poland 's Stanisława Walasiewicz won the gold medal in the women's 100 meters; she would also win the silver medal in the event four years later. After her death in 1980 , it was discovered that she was Intersex and would have been ineligible to participate.
- Finnish star Paavo Nurmi was barred from competing in the Olympics for being a professional.
- Eddie Tolan won both the 100m and 200m sprint events.
- Helene Madison won three gold medals in Swimming , while the Japan ese upset the men's events and took all but one title.
- Takeichi Nishi ("Baron Nishi") was the gold medalist with his horse Uranus in the equestrian Show Jumping Individual Event . Even today, Nishi's gold medal is Japan's only gold medal in the equestrian event. Nishi would later die in 1945 as an officer stationed in the defense of the island of Iwo Jima .
- Jim Thorpe , who was stripped of his medals, took part only in the games in press reports.
- Only 24 members of Brazil 's Olympic team of 69 competed. Brazil was so poor from the Great Depression that the only way they could get the team to Los Angeles was to put them on a barge with 25 tons of coffee to sell to ports on the way. They only managed to sell US$24 worth of coffee and the United States required a $1 head tax per person entering the country.
Their absolute last hope of getting the whole team ashore rested on the Brazilian consulate in San Francisco, who sent out a courier with a check written out for the equivalent of US$45, but by the time he arrived in L.A., the Brazilian ''cruzeiro'' (which the check was written out in) was severely devalued to the point the check was only worth about $17, and to make matters worse, the check bounced.
- The Grand Olympic Auditorium , built to attract the Olympics and home to boxing, weightlifting, and wrestling events, was the largest indoor arena in the United States at the time, seating 15,300.
See the medal winners, ordered by sport:
A total of 37 nations were represented at the 1932 Games.
Colombia and the
Republic Of China made their first appearance at the Olympic Games.
See Also: 1932 Summer Olympics medal count
These are the top ten nations that won medals at these Games.
