No Austerity Olympics In 1948, Harold Wilson doesn't Get His Way.

Harold Wilson became president of the board of trade in Clement Atlee's cabinet and AFAIK was the youngest cabinet minister at 31 that century, up to then! He was a huge proponent of having an olympics in 1948 with London to be the hosts! Eventually he was listened to and the games dubbed the 'austerity Games' went ahead in post war 1948 London! They were a great success and made a small profit. No doubt it helped Wilson's profile considerably also.
What if the higher office holders ignored this young man's view on holding the games in London?
Could the games actually have died entirely or have to wait many more years for a revival? Especially with the way the Nazis had handled them at Berlin'36.
Was Huddersfield finest always going to rise to the top of UK politics?
 
Well any offers?
Could the games have died without the London staging?
Was there any alternatives?
Did it help Wilson's profile a lot or was he always going to rise, as I suspect he was?
 
I don't think the Olympics would have died. They just would have been held somewhere else, probably in the United States or Canada.
 
I'm not sure they would have survived. The previous games was Berlin in 1936, not exactly a shining example in the post war world. As for the US taking them up instead well OTL they didn't stage a post war games until 1960, and didn't host the Summer games until 1984, so I don;ty see them coming to the rescue.
The games might have had to wait on the Drench recovering enough to revive the legacy of De Coubertin.

Even if another city did take up the baton in '48 it might well mean no modern Paralympics; without Doctor Guttmann and Stoke Mandeville hospital disabled to kick start the process it might never have gotten started at all.
 
In a world where there was barely television and black and white at that and where the concept of a 24/7 media was inconceivable and also despite just recovering from a world war, we did not have the concept of 'globalisation' and the concept of sports sponsorship ala MacDonalds,Visa etc today was in its infancy, The games could have died! Al so it was very much a world recovering from a world war was a world where rationing was the order of the day and where people had a lot more to worry about than sport!
I remember, great Irish athlete, Ronnie Delaney, 1500M champion in Melbourne'56 stating that he had never seen the full coverage of his gold medal winning performance until 30 years later. The Irish public back in the day would have relied on newspapers to give the results or possibly BBC radio and its world class endeavours! People back home would only have seen it on newsreel footage at cinemas weeks later!
Also I remember as a child, due to the time difference and Irish television's lack of resources listening to the performances of our 2 great medal hopes at Montreal'76, Sean Dray, Sculler and Chairman of the boards, Eammon Coughlan, live on Irish radio! I saw coverage the next day on TV. Unfortunately both came 4th, leaving us with the same gold medal total as the hosts at this games ie none!:rolleyes:
Also I remember hearing, talk about lack of media interest, The draw for the 1974 world cup finals' groups took place in a school gym with a very light media prescence held in West Germany. An unbelievable contrast to the attention greeting the similar event in Germany 2006.
Fair play and very well done to those who revived them in 1896 and again in 1948!!
Actually Harold Wilson was also to feature In his party's slogans wrt the 1966 England's winning of the world cup on home soil, the next global sports' event held in the UK, when the Labour party's pre election slogan was 'England Only Ever Win The World Cup Under A Labour Government!
 
No Olympics Post WW2 leads To An Intensified Cold War?

Well any more offers on this one and thanks for your contributions to date.
Actually, could no olympics mean a more intensified cold war?
 
The 1948 Olympics were actually sponsored by a Global Brand - Coca Cola, who gave out free beakers etc. outside the sites where the events were taking place.
 
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