The capital of the XV Olympic Summer Games was the capital of Finland - Helsinki. According to the plan, Helsinki was supposed to host the Olympics in 1940. By this time, all the main sports facilities and the Olympic village were built, but the Second World War that began in 1939 made its own adjustments. Only 12 years later, big sport returned to Helsinki.
The grand opening of the Olympics took place on July 19. Thousands of people greeted the great Finnish runner Paavo Nurmi, who was entrusted with the power to light the Olympic flame over the stadium. For the first time, representatives of 49 countries attended the Games. A total of 4925 athletes took part in the competition. This was the first Olympic record for those games.
Of particular importance to us is the fact that the Games in Helsinki were the first Olympics to which a team from the Soviet Union was invited. In addition to Soviet athletes, representatives of Ghana, South Vietnam, the Bahamas, Israel, Germany, Thailand, Indonesia, Nigeria, Hong Kong, Guatemala and the Netherlands Antilles made their debut at the 1952 Games.
At the games, 149 sets of awards were played in 17 sports. In the unofficial medal standings, Soviet athletes, debutants of the Olympics, shared the first place with US athletes.
The confrontation between the strongest teams of the USA and the USSR exacerbated the sports struggle. Suffice it to say that the world long jump record was updated 30 times during one day of competition.
It was with these games that the confrontation in the sports arena of two political systems began. Gradually, all sports powers joined this struggle. Great pressure was exerted on the athletes of the USSR, given the difficult political situation of that time. For the loss in the 1/8 finals to the Yugoslavian team, the USSR football team was severely punished, and the CDSA team, which formed the basis of the USSR Olympic football team, was completely disbanded, and all the players were forced to move to other clubs.
Despite such pressure, Soviet athletes performed more than worthily. The famous Soviet gymnast Viktor Chukarin became a real hero of the Olympics. At the time of the competition, he was 31 years old, behind him there was a war and fascist captivity, but this did not prevent him from becoming the first absolute Olympic champion in artistic gymnastics in the history of the USSR.
But the first Olympic medal in the history of Soviet sports was awarded to the famous discus thrower Nina Romashkova (Ponomareva).
In total, at those games, Soviet athletes won 71 medals, including 22 of the highest dignity.
The 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki are famous for one funny fact. They went down in the history of the Olympic Movement as games that were not closed.
On August 3, at the closing ceremony of the Games, IOC President Siegfried Engström made a solemn speech, but forgot to utter the final phrase prescribed by the charter: "I declare the XV Olympic Games closed."
The Helsinki Olympics lasted two weeks, but they have not yet been completed.
