Gliding At The 1936 Summer Olympics
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Gliding Gliding is a recreational activity and competitive air sports, air sport in which pilots fly glider aircraft, unpowered aircraft known as Glider (sailplane), gliders or sailplanes using naturally occurring currents of rising air in the atmospher ...
at the
1936 Summer Olympics The 1936 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XI Olympiad () and officially branded as Berlin 1936, were an international multi-sport event held from 1 to 16 August 1936 in Berlin, then capital of Nazi Germany. Berlin won the bid to ...
was a
demonstration sport A demonstration sport, or exhibition sport, is a sport which is played to promote it, rather than as part of standard medal competition. This occurs commonly during the Olympic Games but may also occur at other sporting events. Demonstration sport ...
. The sport of gliding had been developed in Germany in the 1920s but had spread widely by 1936, allowing an international demonstration to the
International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee (IOC; , CIO) is the international, non-governmental, sports governing body of the modern Olympic Games. Founded in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin and Demetrios Vikelas, it is based i ...
(IOC). No contest took place and no prizes were allowed by the IOC. ISTUS (Internationale Studienkommission für motorlosen Flug) which later became part of the FAI Gliding Commission had wanted to present prizes, but this did not happen. However, a Swiss, Hermann Schreiber, was awarded a gold medal for his flight across the Alps in 1935. The demonstration at the
1936 Berlin Olympics The 1936 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XI Olympiad () and officially branded as Berlin 1936, were an international multi-sport event held from 1 to 16 August 1936 in Berlin, then capital of Nazi Germany. Berlin won the bid to ...
was at Berlin-Staaken airfield on 4 August. Twenty-one pilots from seven countries (Bulgaria, Italy, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Switzerland, Germany and Austria) took part, including Germany's
Hanna Reitsch Hanna Reitsch (29 March 1912 – 24 August 1979) was a German Pilot (aeronautics), aviator and test pilot. Along with Melitta von Stauffenberg, she flight-tested many of Germany's new aircraft during World War II and received many hono ...
. On the previous day, a wing of a glider broke during an aerobatic flight by an Austrian, Ignaz Stiefsohn. He was killed. The Hungarian pilot, Lajos Rotter, declared on the evening of 10 August at Rangsdorf that the next day he would fly to
Kiel Kiel ( ; ) is the capital and most populous city in the northern Germany, German state of Schleswig-Holstein. With a population of around 250,000, it is Germany's largest city on the Baltic Sea. It is located on the Kieler Förde inlet of the Ba ...
, where Olympic sailing events were held. He then flew his Nemere glider to Kiel in poor weather. On arrival over Kiel at an altitude of 650 m he saluted the Olympic site with two loops and landed at Holtenau 4hr 31min after launch. The distance flown was 336.5 km. This was then the longest pre-declared goal flight by a glider. Gliding was officially accepted by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) at their 1938 Cairo Conference as part of the "facultative" (optional) group of sports, and was to be staged for the first time in the
1940 Summer Olympics The 1940 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XII Olympiad, was a planned international multi-sport event scheduled to have been held from 21 September to 6 October 1940, in Tokyo City, Japan, and later rescheduled for 20 July t ...
. An Olympic glider, the DFS Olympia Meise, was chosen in 1939 but the Games were cancelled due to the outbreak of the Finnish/Russian winter war. The sport remained on the list of optional sports through 1956, when the IOC decided to abolish that list. None of the organizers through 1956 had elected to host gliding events. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, which was formed following the 1905 Olympic Congress, is presently recognized by the IOC, but none of its disciplines (which include gliding) appear to be close to Olympic inclusion. Activist Angus Lippiatt has been consistently campaigning to have gliding reintroduced in future Olympics, however progress and developments have been questioned.


See also

*
Gliding Gliding is a recreational activity and competitive air sports, air sport in which pilots fly glider aircraft, unpowered aircraft known as Glider (sailplane), gliders or sailplanes using naturally occurring currents of rising air in the atmospher ...
*
Gliding competitions Some of the pilots in the sport of gliding take part in gliding competitions. These are usually racing competitions, but there are also aerobatic contests and on-line league tables. History of competitions In the early days, the main goal wa ...


References


External links


Video of a demonstration flight in 1936
* {{Sports at the Olympics
Olympics The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a variety of competit ...
Discontinued sports at the Summer Olympics Events at the 1936 Summer Olympics Olympic demonstration sports Gliding in Germany Aviation history of Germany