Gymnastics at the 1948 Summer Olympics

Gymnastics at the Games of the XIV Olympiad
Venue	Empress Hall
←  1936 1952  →

At the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, nine events in gymnastics were contested. ^[1] Finland led all nations with six gold medals and ten medals overall. ^{[2] [3]}

Shortly after the Czechoslovak team arrived in London, 22 year old team member Eliška Misáková was taken ill and confined to an iron lung. She died of infantile paralysis on the same day that her teammates competed. ^[4] When the Czechoslovak flag was raised at the medal ceremony, it was bordered with a black ribbon. ^[4]

Medal table

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Finland  (FIN)	6	2	2	10
2	Switzerland  (SUI)	3	4	2	9
3	Hungary  (HUN)	1	2	3	6
4	Czechoslovakia  (TCH)	1	0	3	4
5	United States  (USA)	0	0	1	1
Totals (5 entries)		11	8	11	30

Men's events

Games	Gold	Silver	Bronze
individual all-round details	Veikko Huhtanen   Finland	Walter Lehmann   Switzerland	Paavo Aaltonen   Finland
team all-around details	Finland  (FIN) Paavo Aaltonen Veikko Huhtanen Kalevi Laitinen Olavi Rove Aleksanteri Saarvala Sulo Salmi Heikki Savolainen Einari Teräsvirta	Switzerland  (SUI) Karl Frei Christian Kipfer Walter Lehmann Robert Lucy Michael Reusch Josef Stalder Emil Studer Melchior Thalmann	Hungary  (HUN) László Baranyai Jozsef Fekete Gyözö Mogyorosi János Mogyorósi-Klencs Ferenc Pataki Lajos Sántha Lajos Tóth Ferenc Várkõi
floor exercises details	Ferenc Pataki   Hungary	János Mogyorósi-Klencs   Hungary	Zdeněk Růžička   Czechoslovakia
horizontal bar details	Josef Stalder   Switzerland	Walter Lehmann   Switzerland	Veikko Huhtanen   Finland
parallel bars details	Michael Reusch   Switzerland	Veikko Huhtanen   Finland	Josef Stalder   Switzerland
			Christian Kipfer   Switzerland
pommel horse details	Paavo Aaltonen   Finland	none awarded [A]	none awarded [A]
	Veikko Huhtanen   Finland
	Heikki Savolainen   Finland
rings details	Karl Frei   Switzerland	Michael Reusch   Switzerland	Zdeněk Růžička   Czechoslovakia
vault details	Paavo Aaltonen   Finland	Olavi Rove   Finland	János Mogyorósi-Klencs   Hungary
			Ferenc Pataki   Hungary
			Leo Sotorník   Czechoslovakia

Women's events

Games	Gold	Silver	Bronze
team all-around details	Czechoslovakia  (TCH) Zdeňka Honsová Marie Kovářová Miloslava Misáková Milena Müllerová Věra Růžičková Olga Šilhánová Božena Srncová Zdeňka Veřmiřovská	Hungary  (HUN) Edit Weckinger Mária Zalai-Kövi Irén Karcsics Erzsébet Gulyás-Köteles Erzsébet Balázs Olga Tass Anna Fehér Margit Nagy-Sándor	United States  (USA) Ladislava Bakanic Marian Barone Consetta Lenz Dorothy Dalton Meta Elste Helen Schifano Clara Schroth Anita Simonis
Individual all-around† details	Zdeňka Honsová   Czechoslovakia	Edit Weckinger   Hungary Laura Micheli   Italy	n/a
Vault† details	Karin Lindberg   Sweden	Joan Airey   Great Britain Clara Schroth   United States	n/a
Balance Beam† details	Zdeňka Honsová   Czechoslovakia	Irén Karcsics   Hungary Miloslava Misáková   Czechoslovakia	n/a
Flying Rings†, ††† details	Zdeňka Honsová   Czechoslovakia	Edit Weckinger   Hungary Laura Micheli   Italy	n/a
Floor Exercise†, ††††	n/a	n/a	n/a
Uneven Bars†, ††	n/a	n/a	n/a

† Within the sport of artistic gymnastics, although men were recognized with individual medals at the time, the women weren’t. The list of the individual medalists within this table reflects the individuals who garnered a top-three placement in the team competition on the respective apparatus (or all 3 combined, in the case of the all-around) and who would have been awarded a medal with the rules that commenced with the 1952 Helsinki Summer Olympic Games and that would change periodically at future Olympic Games with respect to the debut of individual finals competitions at the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics and with respect to the New Life rules that made their Olympic debut at the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics.

†† Women did not compete on the Uneven Bars apparatus during these Olympic Games.

††† This was the only time that women gymnasts competed on this apparatus at an Olympic Games.

†††† Women’s Floor Exercise was not an event that existed at the time.

Participating nations

•   Argentina  (7)
•   Austria  (16)
•   Belgium  (8)
•   Cuba  (7)
•   Czechoslovakia  (16)
•   Denmark  (8)
•   Egypt  (8)
•   Finland  (8)
•   France  (16)
•   Great Britain  (16)
•   Hungary  (16)
•   Italy  (16)
•   Luxembourg  (8)
•   Mexico  (5)
•   Netherlands  (8)
•   Sweden  (8)
•   Switzerland  (8)
•   United States  (16)
•   Yugoslavia  (16)

Notes

^[A] Other sources ^{[5] [6]} claim that Luigi Zanetti (Italy) also won a silver medal and Guido Figone (Italy) also won a bronze medal in the pommel horse event, despite the three gold medals awarded for the three-way first place tie.

References

1. The Official Report of the Organising Committee for the XIV Olympiad (PDF). London: Organising Committee for the XIV Olympiad. 1951. pp. 389–405. Retrieved 2008-02-04.
2. "Olympic Medal Winners". International Olympic Committee . Retrieved 2006-11-18.
3. "Gymnastics at the 1948 London Summer Games". Sports Reference. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
4. Wallechinsky, David (1984). The Complete Book of the Olympics. England: Penguin Books. p. 323. ISBN   0140066322.
5. Lord Killanin; Rodda, John (1983). The Olympic Games 1984. Willow. ISBN   0-00-218062-6.
6. Greenberg, Stan (1996). The Guinness Book of Olympic Facts and Feats. Guinness Publishing. ISBN   0-85112-639-1.

51°33′20″N0°16′47″W / 51.5556°N 0.2797°W / 51.5556; -0.2797