1948 Olympics - the athletes' accommodation
Listener's query
"Was there an Olympic Village built for the 1948 London Olympics? If not, where did the athletes stay? Also, with rationing, what did they eat?"
Brief summary
The first Olympic Village was built for the Los Angeles Games in 1932. It had 550 two-bedroom portable bungalows for the male athletes on a 300-acre site. The women were put up in the city in the Chapman Park Hotel. The village also had a hospital, a post office, a library and places to eat.
At the 1936 Berlin Olympics there was a village with 150 cottages for the male athletes. This was Nazi Germany on parade, with four new stadiums, swimming pools and a polo field.
The Olympics due in 1940 and 1944 were not held. The 1948 London Olympics took place with Europe still in ruins. No new stadium was built. The Games cost 拢750,000. Athletics and equestrian events were held at Wembley Stadium, swimming at the Wembley Pool, boxing at Harringay Arena, shooting at Bisley and rowing at Henley.
No Olympic Village was built. The male athletes were put up separately from the women, mainly at a number of military camps: two RAF camps (Uxbridge and West Drayton) and an RAF camp used as a hospital in Richmond, Middlesex. Athletes were also put up at schools and three Greater London colleges, including Southlands College for the women. Between 25 and 30 sites were used, meaning that transport had to be arranged from there to the various sports grounds.
Making History consulted Sylvia Cheeseman, a British sprinter in the 1948 Games. She said she was put up in a nurses' home in a noisy area near Victoria.
Diet was not as important in those days and the food tended to be stodgy. Rationing was on and it became a highly political issue. The American team brought their own food and other countries helped out too.
More than 4,000 athletes from 59 nations, only 500 of them women, took part.
Expert consulted
Sylvia Cheeseman, a British sprinter in the 1948 Games
Further reading
David Wallenchinsky, The Complete Book of the Summer Olympics: Athens 2004 Edition (Aurum Press, 2004)
David Miller, Athens to Athens: The Official History of the Olympic Games and the IOC, 1896-2004 (Mainstream Publishing, 2003)
Websites
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Vanessa has presented听science and current affairs programmes for 成人快手, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Discovery and has presented for 成人快手 Radio 4 & Five Live and a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph and the Mail on Sunday, Scotsman and Sunday Herald.听