Athletics at the 1932 Summer Olympics

The 1932 Olympic track & field competition took place in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. It had been built as a memorial to World War I veterans and opened in 1923, with the largest seating capacity of any Olympic Stadium to that date, with space for over 100,000 spectators. The 1932 Olympics were hampered by the long and difficult travel for many countries to get their teams to the West Coast of the United States, and coupled with the severe world-wide economic depression, caused attendance to be down somewhat from the last two Olympics. Average crowds for track & field still topped 60,000 people, with one day having 86,443 spectators. The heroine of the athletics competition was Babe Didrikson, who won the 80 metre hurdles and javelin throw, and placed second in the high jump. She would later become a professional golfer and for a time was the top female golfer in the world. She is often considered the greatest all-around female athlete of all time. Women competed in six events in 1932, up one from Amsterdam, with the 80 metre hurdles and javelin throw added, but the 800 metres was off the program. On the men’s side, Eddie Tolan won both sprint races, defeating his arch-rival Ralph Metcalfe.