Abstract
The BOA remained preoccupied with personnel and fund-raising issues in an era overshadowed by economic depression and the looming prospect of renewed global war. In many respects the pattern of the 1912–28 period was replicated during the 1930s and 1940s. In the face of uncertainty and criticism, the Association eventually ensured British participation at Los Angeles in 1932 and at the ‘Nazi Olympics’ in 1936. With Lord Burghley at the helm as Chairman, BOA fortunes began to revive, and although both the 1940 and 1944 Olympics were cancelled because of the Second World War, the period under scrutiny ended on a high note. At short notice and against the odds, much as in 1908, the BOA organised the successful ‘austerity Games’ in London in 1948.
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Notes
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Cited in Captain P. A. M. Webster (ed.), British Olympic Association Official Report of the Xth Olympiad 1932 (BOA, 1932), p. 33.
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Derek Birley, Playing the Game. Sport and British Society, 1910–45 (Manchester, 1995), p. 236. Burghley did however clock a personal best of 52.2 seconds in finishing in fourth place.
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Jefferys, K. (2014). The Shadows of Depression and War: Los Angeles 1932–London 1948. In: The British Olympic Association: A History. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137363428_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137363428_5
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