Why athletes from the USSR did not take part in the Olympic Games until 1952

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

After the formation of the Soviet Union in 1922, the new state was excluded from the world Olympic movement for a long time. Despite the achievements of the athletes of the USSR, all pre-war attempts to participate in the Olympiads ended in failure. The turning point happened after 1950, when the International Olympic Committee (IOC), interested in the successes of Soviet athletes, suggested that Moscow create an Olympic team for a trip to Helsinki.

Why the USSR did not send its athletes to the Olympics until 1952

After the change in the social system, the Soviet Union was in no hurry to participate in world competitions for several reasons. First, there were political differences between the young socialist state and the capitalist countries, which hindered positive relations, including in the field of sports.

Secondly, the 1936 Olympic Games were held in the country of a potential enemy - fascist Germany, which literally half a month after the end of the Olympics became the instigator of a new world war.

Thirdly, after 1945, the USSR was recovering from ruins and raising the economy, so the preparation of athletes for international competitions faded into the background during this period.

In addition, the development of pre-war sports was based on the slogan "Be ready for work and defense", which meant one thing: the country needed physically prepared defenders of the homeland, and not the Olympic achievements of individual athletes. Therefore, after the Great Patriotic War, it was necessary to revise the training in some sports, since the previous training methods were simply outdated.

In 1948, the Soviet delegation visited the XIV Olympics in England as observers to study the peculiarities of the teams' tactics and the specifics of the individual technique of athletes; and also learn about the level of preparation and organization of the Olympic Games.

How the USSR Olympic Committee was formed

However, despite the state difficulties, the athletes of the Union already in 1946 had world recognition in such sports as weightlifting (barbell), football, basketball. A year later, the international federation included Soviet swimmers, chess players, athletes, wrestlers and skaters. Two volleyball players with skiers.

Athletes from the USSR participated and won many world and European competitions. It became impossible to ignore the successes of the socialist power in the sports field, and in 1950 the IOC sent an invitation to Moscow to the Helsinki Olympics. At the founding meeting held in the capital at the end of April 1951, the USSR Olympic Committee was created. Two weeks later, in May, the country became a member of the IOC with its representative, Konstantin Alexandrovich Andrianov, who headed the Union Olympic Committee.

Debut of Soviet athletes in Helsinki. In what sports did Soviet athletes show the best results?

The opening of the XV Olympic Games took place on July 19, 1952 in Finland. The athletes of the country, which became a participant in the Olympics for the first time, according to the results of the competition, ended up in the second overall team place, losing only to the team from the United States.

The national team of the Soviet Union, which consisted of 295 people (40 women and 255 men), in total received 71 medals: 19 bronze for the third place, 30 silver for the second and 22 gold for the first. By sports, gold awards were distributed as follows: artistic gymnastics - 9 medals (of which Viktor Chukarin won 3), wrestling - 6, weightlifting - 3, shooting - 1, rowing - 1.

The sport "athletics" brought two gold medals - one of them went to Nina Ponomareva-Romashkova, who set a record in discus throwing on the second day of the competition with a score of 51.42 meters. The second gold award was given to Galina Zybina, who showed the world record in shot put. Artistic gymnastics was also in the lead in the number of silver awards - one team and 6 people were awarded medals, among which Maria Gorokhovskaya became the owner of 4 medals. The runners-up won 8 silver medals and 7 bronze medals for the third place. Athletes trained in the Union, coming to Finland only for the duration of their participation in competitions. We lived this period in the Olympic - "socialist" - village, built at the request of the USSR in order to isolate itself from the representatives of the capitalist side.

How the Olympic Games were held in Moscow and why many Western countries did not take part in them

On July 19, 1980, the XXII Summer Olympic Games opened in Moscow. For the first time, the competition was held on the territory of the socialist camp, and therefore special attention was paid to the organization in order to avoid criticism and negative comparisons. The efforts were not in vain: the Olympic holiday was held in a warm, friendly atmosphere and with a lot of new achievements. So, for 16 days of sports competitions, the participants set 36 world, 39 European and 74 Olympic records.

In addition to the high sports and organizational level of the competition, experts noted the absence of doping consumption - not a single test for it, out of 9,292 analyzes, found any stimulating drugs prohibited by the IOC in athletes. According to Prince de Merode, who headed the medical commission: "The Olympics in Moscow can be considered the cleanest in the history of the Olympic Games."

The sports festival did not even spoil the boycott of a number of capitalist countries that ignored the Moscow Olympics: according to one version, because of the persecution of dissidents in the USSR, according to the other, because of the introduction of troops into Afghanistan. The instigators of the boycott were representatives of the USA, Canada and Great Britain. In total, the Olympic committees of more than 60 states refused to go to Moscow. Among them: South Korea, Turkey, USA, Japan, Canada, Germany, etc.

However, despite the boycott of their country, many athletes came privately and performed under the IOC flag. Thus, in addition to the official participants from 81 states, teams arrived in Moscow: from Italy, Australia, Switzerland, Ireland, etc. Only Western European athletes from Sweden, Austria, Greece, Malta and Finland competed under their national flag.

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