by Henry L. Liao

Unknown to many, men’s basketball was played in the Summer Olympics long before the sport became an official medal-winning event during the 1936 Games in Berlin, Germany.

At the 1904 St. Louis (USA) Olympics, an exhibition tournament was staged with five American teams in action. The Buffalo German YMCA club topped the event following a 39-28 victory over the Chicago Central YMCA unit.

Another exhibition, an eight-team tournament, was held at the 1924 Games in Paris, France.

The great moment for basketball arrived officially during the 1936 Berlin Olympics, following the establishment of the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) in 1932 and its recognition as the official body of the game by the International Olympic Committee.
Ironically, basketball made its debut in Berlin as an outdoor sport (and not indoor as generally considered). It was staged on tennis courts of clay and sand.

A total of 21 countries from four of the five continents (except Oceania) competed in the quadrennial showcase.
Spain would have been the 22nd country to see action but it withdrew from the entire Games at the last minute on account of the outbreak of civil war.

The United States gained its first Olympic victory with a default win over the Spaniards.

The first game played by the 14-man American squad was against Estonia. The Yanks handily defeated the Baltic State, 52-28 (26-7 at halftime) despite 21 points from Georges Vinogradov, whose sole job with the Estonians was to shoot and shoot as he never went back to help out on the defensive end.

Following victories over the Philippines (56-23/28-20 halftime) and Mexico (25-10/13-2 halftime), the U.S. earned its first-ever Olympic men’s basketball gold on August 14, 1936, with an easy 19-8 (15-4 HT) decision over Canada in the championship game.

The gold-medal contest was marred by heavy rains and was entirely of fumbles and interceptions as players found it difficult to dribble on a court that had turned into mud.

The Summer Olympics were canceled in 1940 and 1944 due to World War II. The quadrennial Games resumed action in 1948.

That year, a record-setting 23 countries took part in men’s basketball during the London Olympics. The U.S. again grabbed the gold medal with an unblemished 8-0 win-loss record. Its closest game came in a preliminary-round encounter against Argentina.

The Argentines, who would eventually finish only 15th overall, lost by just two points, 59-57, after leading by seven, 33-26, at halftime.

The Americans went on to capture the Olympic men’s basketball gold again in 1952 (Helsinki, Finland), 1956 (Melbourne, Australia), 1960 (Rome, Italy) and 1964 (Tokyo, Japan) before dropping a disputed 51-50 decision to the old Soviet Union during the finals of the 1972 Munich Games that shattered their 63-game winning streak.