Athletics at the 1932 Summer Olympics

At the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, 29 athletics events were contested. It was the first time the 50 kilometres race walk appeared in the athletic program at the Games. This was the second time women's events in athletics were included in the Olympic Games program and the first time that women competed in the javelin throw and 80m hurdles at the Olympics. There was a total of 386 participants from 34 countries competing.^[1]

Athletics at the Games of the X Olympiad
No. of events	29
Competitors	386 from 34 nations
← 1928 1936 →

The athletics events took place at Los Angeles Olympic Stadium, now the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

Medal summary

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	United States (USA)	16	13	6	35
2	Finland (FIN)	3	4	4	11
3	Great Britain (GBR)	2	4	2	8
4	Poland (POL)	2	0	1	3
5	Ireland (IRL)	2	0	0	2
6	Canada (CAN)	1	3	5	9
7	Japan (JPN)	1	1	2	4
8	Italy (ITA)	1	0	2	3
9	Argentina (ARG)	1	0	0	1
10	Germany (GER)	0	2	3	5
11	Latvia (LAT)	0	1	0	1
	Sweden (SWE)	0	1	0	1
13	Czechoslovakia (TCH)	0	0	1	1
	France (FRA)	0	0	1	1
	Philippines (PHI)	0	0	1	1
	South Africa (RSA)	0	0	1	1
Totals (16 entries)		29	29	29	87

Men

Event	Gold		Silver		Bronze
100 metres details	Eddie Tolan  United States	10.3	Ralph Metcalfe  United States	10.3	Arthur Jonath  Germany	10.4
200 metres details	Eddie Tolan  United States	21.2	George Simpson  United States	21.4	Ralph Metcalfe  United States	21.5
400 metres details	Bill Carr  United States	46.2	Ben Eastman  United States	46.4	Alex Wilson  Canada	47.4
800 metres details	Tommy Hampson  Great Britain	1:49.7	Alex Wilson  Canada	1:49.9	Phil Edwards  Canada	1:51.5
1500 metres details	Luigi Beccali  Italy	3:51.2	Jerry Cornes  Great Britain	3:52.6	Phil Edwards  Canada	3:52.8
5000 metres details	Lauri Lehtinen  Finland	14:30.0	Ralph Hill  United States	14:30.0	Lauri Virtanen  Finland	14:44.0
10,000 metres details	Janusz Kusociński  Poland	30:11.4	Volmari Iso-Hollo  Finland	30:12.6	Lauri Virtanen  Finland	30:35.0
110 metres hurdles details	George Saling  United States	14.6	Percy Beard  United States	14.7	Donald Finlay  Great Britain	14.8
400 metres hurdles details	Bob Tisdall  Ireland	51.8	Glenn Hardin  United States	51.9	Morgan Taylor  United States	52.0
3000 metres steeplechase details[2]	Volmari Iso-Hollo  Finland	10:33.4	Thomas Evenson  Great Britain	10:46.0	Joe McCluskey  United States	10:46.2
4 × 100 metres relay details	United States (USA) Bob Kiesel Hector Dyer Emmett Toppino Frank Wykoff	40.0	Germany (GER) Friedrich Hendrix Erich Borchmeyer Arthur Jonath Helmut Körnig	40.9	Italy (ITA) Giuseppe Castelli Gabriele Salviati Ruggero Maregatti Edgardo Toetti	41.2
4 × 400 metres relay details	United States (USA) Ivan Fuqua Ed Ablowich Karl Warner Bill Carr	3:08.2	Great Britain (GBR) Crew Stoneley Tommy Hampson David Burghley Godfrey Rampling	3:11.2	Canada (CAN) James Ball Ray Lewis Phil Edwards Alex Wilson	3:12.8
Marathon details	Juan Carlos Zabala  Argentina	2:31:36	Sam Ferris  Great Britain	2:31:55	Armas Toivonen  Finland	2:32:12
50 kilometres walk details	Tommy Green  Great Britain	4:50:10	Jānis Daliņš  Latvia	4:57:20	Ugo Frigerio  Italy	4:59:06
High jump details	Duncan McNaughton  Canada	1.97 m	Bob Van Osdel  United States	1.97 m	Simeon Toribio  Philippines	1.97 m
Pole vault details	Bill Miller  United States	4.315 m	Shuhei Nishida  Japan	4.30 m	George Jefferson  United States	4.20 m
Long jump details	Ed Gordon  United States	7.64 m	Lambert Redd  United States	7.60 m	Chuhei Nambu  Japan	7.45 m
Triple jump details	Chuhei Nambu  Japan	15.72 m	Erik Svensson  Sweden	15.32 m	Kenkichi Oshima  Japan	15.12 m
Shot put details	Leo Sexton  United States	16.00 m	Harlow Rothert  United States	15.67 m	František Douda  Czechoslovakia	15.61 m
Discus throw details	John Anderson  United States	49.49 m	Henri LaBorde  United States	48.47 m	Paul Winter  France	47.85 m
Hammer throw details	Pat O'Callaghan  Ireland	53.92 m	Ville Pörhölä  Finland	52.27 m	Peter Zaremba  United States	50.33 m
Javelin throw details	Matti Järvinen  Finland	72.71 m	Matti Sippala  Finland	69.80 m	Eino Penttilä  Finland	68.70 m
Decathlon details	James Bausch  United States	8462.23	Akilles Järvinen  Finland	8292.48	Wolrad Eberle  Germany	8030.80

Women

Games	Gold	Silver	Bronze
100 metres details	Stanisława Walasiewicz  Poland	Hilda Strike  Canada	Wilhelmina von Bremen  United States
80 metres hurdles details	Babe Didrikson  United States	Evelyne Hall  United States	Marjorie Clark  South Africa
4 × 100 metres relay details	United States (USA) Mary Carew Evelyn Furtsch Annette Rogers Wilhelmina von Bremen	Canada (CAN) Mary Frizzel Mildred Fizzell Lillian Palmer Hilda Strike	Great Britain (GBR) Nellie Halstead Eileen Hiscock Gwendoline Porter Violet Webb
High jump details	Jean Shiley  United States	Babe Didrikson  United States	Eva Dawes  Canada
Discus throw details	Lillian Copeland  United States	Ruth Osburn  United States	Jadwiga Wajs  Poland
Javelin throw details	Babe Didrikson  United States	Ellen Braumüller  Germany	Tilly Fleischer  Germany

Participating Nations

•  Argentina (11)
•  Australia (4)
•  Austria (4)
•  Brazil (21)
•  Canada (29)
•  Republic of China (1)
•  Colombia (1)
•  Cuba (3)
•  Czechoslovakia (3)
•  Denmark (2)
•  Estonia (1)
•  Finland (21)
•  France (12)
•  Germany (27)
•  Great Britain (25)
•  Greece (9)
•  Haiti (2)
•  Hungary (6)
•  India (4)
•  Ireland (4)
•  Italy (21)
•  Japan (34)
•  Latvia (2)
•  Mexico (27)
•  Netherlands (7)
•  New Zealand (6)
•  Norway (3)
•  Philippines (1)
•  Poland (7)
•  Portugal (1)
•  South Africa (4)
•  Sweden (9)
•  Switzerland (3)
•  United States (79)
•  Yugoslavia (1)

Records broken

Of the 29 events competed new Olympic records were set in all but three: men's long jump, high jump and hammer throw. World records were set in 10 events.

Men's world records

Event	Date	Round	Name	Nationality	Result
400 metres	5 August	Final	Bill Carr	United States	46.2
800 metres	2 August	Final	Tommy Hampson	Great Britain	1:49.8
4 × 100 metres relay	7 August	Final	Bob Kiesel Hector Dyer Emmett Toppino Frank Wykoff	United States	40.0
4 × 400 metres relay	7 August	Final	Ivan Fuqua Ed Ablowich Karl Warner Bill Carr	United States	3:08.2
Triple jump	4 August	Final	Chuhei Nambu	Japan	15.72 m
Decathlon	6 August	Final	James Bausch	United States	8462.235

Women's world records

Event	Date	Round	Name	Nationality	Result
100 metres	1 August	Heats	Stanisława Walasiewicz	Poland	11.9
80 metres hurdles	4 August	Final	Babe Didrikson	United States	11.7
			Evelyne Hall	United States
4 × 100 metres relay	7 August	Final	Mary Carew Evelyn Furtsch Annette Rogers Wilhelmina von Bremen	United States	47.0
			Mary Frizzel Mildred Fizzell Lillian Palmer Hilda Strike	Canada
High jump	7 August	Final	Jean Shiley	United States	1.65 m
			Babe Didrikson	United States