London, 1948

These Games were the first Olympics since the war, and Europe was still recovering from the devastation. London was actually awarded the 1944 Games, but due to the onging war it was not held.
At this time, food shortages meant that each country was asked to bring food for its own athletes.
as a consequence of being on the losing side of the WW2, Germany and Japan were not invited to these Games, though a record 59 other countries attended.
On the day the 1948 Olympic games began at Wembley Stadium in London, June 29, the famed Australian 'Invincibles' cricket side was finishing off England in a test at nearby Lord's, winning by 409 runs.
These were the first Games to be shown on home television.

Athletes

Dutch athlete Fanny Blankers-Koen won four gold medals, the equivalents of the ones Jesse Owens had won twelve years earlier. Fanny was 30 years old and the mother of 2 at the time. She held the world records in the high and long jumps, but did not compete in these, as rules prohibited women from competing in more than three individual events.
Right-handed Hungarian Karoly Takcaz, a member of the national pistol-shooting team, had that hand shattered by a grenade in 1938. He teaches himself to shoot with his left, and wins the gold in the rapid-fire pistol event this year.