Listed 4 sub titles with search on: Olympic games for wider area of: "MELBOURNE Town VICTORIA" .
MELBOURNE (Town) VICTORIA
The Melbourne Olympics were also called the Olympics of Bureaucracy.
With just one opposing vote the IOC had decided, in 1949, to send the Games
to Australia. Their hesitation was due to the Australian's tardiness in finishing
the facilities as well as the inflexible australian laws that prohibited the
importation of animals, thus excluding the equestrian sports to be held in Melbourne.
So, for the first time and contrary to IOC rules, an event was detached from
the main Games and was held elsewhere, in Sweden.
The 1956 Olympics, the only Olympiad so far to take place in the
Southern Hemisphere, opened in Melbourne under a cloud of international ill-will,
caused by the Soviet invasion in Hungary and by the Franco-British intervention
in the Suez Canal dispute. Protesting Holland, Switzerland and Spain withdrew.
So did Lebanon and Egypt. Communist China followed suit and withdrew in a protest
for Taiwan's presence.
The distance runs were dominated by Soviet sailor Vladimir Kuts
with record victories at 5,000m and 10,000m. Ireland took one gold with Ronnie
Delany at 1,500m. The ever great Emil Zatopek has his first taste of defeat
from the Algerian-French Alain Mimoun. Mimoun came first leaving Zatopek six
places behind. Let us be reminded that in the last three Olympiads, Mimoun was
always a standard second, with Zatopek first.
In the closing day, the participants did not parade in rows of
four as it was done until then. They entered the stadium "en masse" signifying
the closeness and the friendship of the Games. The idea came from an Australian-born
Chinese boy, John Whing, in a letter he addressed to the Olympic Committee.
A happy postscript to the games took place in Prague the next year when Harold
Connolly, the American hammer-throw winner, married Olga Figotova, the Czech
Olympic discus champion. Best man for the occasion? Who would be more appropriate
than a smiling Emil Zatopek?
Text by Dimitri N. Marcopoulos
Melbourne 1956
Links with various Organizations' WebPages:
The Olympic Movement
American Sport Art Museum and Archives , a division of the United States Sports Academy
International Sailing Federation
Melbourne 1956
Links with various Media's WebPages:
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
British Broadcasting Corporation
1956 Melbourne Olympics: Various WebPages
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