1948 London Olympic Games’ Gold Medals Finally Given
Better late than never! It took a time span of sixty two years for the Belgian cycling team to finally receive their Olympic Gold medals. In 1948, when the three-man team from Belgium won the 194-kilometre road race, they were so confused yet joyful that they only jumped on the top of the double Decker bus before they returned home.
Eugene van Roosbroeck, one of the Belgian cyclists who have received the gold medal last week, told that it was a complete confusion after the race ended. He said that there was no ceremony or stage to assemble for the medal’s distribution. Now they tell all they did was to jump on the back of their bus that took them back to their barracks, before they left for their homeland, Europe the next morning. None of them had ever thought that there would ever be a medal awarded for the team. The honour and fun they had then, was thought to be enough for them to celebrate at that time.
Above all, what is most shocking is the fact that the three winners, Van Roosbroeck and his team-mates Lode Wouters and Leon De Lathouwer, did not even know that they had wonuntil recently. Lode Wouters stood third, Leon De Lathouwer finished at the fourth place and Roosbroeck was ninth. It took days to do the calculations and inform the team of their victory.
In the year 1948, after the disasters and calamities of the Second World War, London hosted the first Olympic Games. The catastrophes of the war left the organisers so strapped for cash that now it seems unbelievable, the way they had the event organised. The chairman of the 1948 Organising Committee, Lord Burghley, made the best and most innovative use of resources available to him. No new houses were built for the athletes who stationed in the army barracks and in place of a running track they used the Wembley Stadium dog track. Also, building a new swimming pool was not possible so it was a new ice rink that was defrosted for the purpose. Above all, was the way they had the lighting problem solved. Due to not being able to afford the floodlights at Herne Hill, the car owners were asked to encircle the track with the headlights of their cars in order to shed light on the riders during the evening races. It was probably, the only will power that pulled the event through which was named as the Austerity Games, due to these economic post-war severities.
However, the 1948 London Games were the first sports event ever to be shown on home television. Well, that is another fact that very few people in Great Britain actually had TV sets then.
Despite the rationing difficulties of food, clothes, and other essential materials, the English organizing committee showed a miraculous job. These Games were the first event ever to have the involvement of the Communist countries as well among the total fifty nine nations. No athletes from Japan and Germany were invited due to their role as aggressors in the war and the USSR chose not to participate. Overall, the United States won the most medals adding up to eighty four in total.
The super star of the game was the Dutch sprinter f***y Blankers-Koen, also nicknamed "The Flying Housewife”. This mother of three children, 30-year old lady bagged four gold medals in athletics.
Now, in the year 2012, London will stand as the first city to host the Summer Olympics for a third time. Now again due to the current global economic situation London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) has a big problem of money. Innovative methods are being sought to save money. However, it still could not be said surely, if Lord Coe would be able to able to make the maximum out of the sources available the way Lord Burghley, the chairman of the 1948 Organising Committee did during those post-war times. Yet still the event is waited and hailed just as much as it was years back.
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