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| Event type

Team, Men

Date21 – 25 July 1952
StatusOlympic
LocationAhveniston maauimala, Hämeenlinna / Ahveniston hallintorakennus, Hämeenlinna / Ahveniston harju, Hämeenlinna
Participants48 from 16 countries
FormatPoint-for-place scoring. Team scores totalled from individual scores. Three-man teams with all scores counting. Ordinals adjusted to include only team competitors, and only those teams finishing the complete event.

This was the first Olympic team event. Scoring in the team event was conducted by adding up the scores of the nation’s three competitors. But it was not a simple matter of using the point-for-place scores from the individual competition. For the team competition, ordinal scores were counted only for the athletes counting in the team competition. Further, if a team had an athlete not finish, thereby disqualifying the team, that team’s placements were thrown out and the previous phases were re-scored. It made it very difficult to follow the event in 1952.

The two favorites were Sweden and Finland. Sweden had been World Team Champion in 1949-51, with Finland second every year. The Helsinki team event came down to Sweden against Hungary, however. Finland would place third but never had the lead and was not close to overtaking either of the two leaders. Sweden took the lead after the opening riding phase and maintained it after the fencing. But Hungary shot strongly and moved ahead after the third phase. Sweden had better swimmers, led by individual gold medalist Lars Hall, and won that phase, but Hungary still held a narrow lead – 128-131 – going into the run. In the cross-country run, Hungary pulled away from Sweden to win the gold medal. This would be the first of many gold medals for Hungary in modern pentathlon.

PosCompetitor(s)NOCTOAIO
1HungaryHUN166Gold
Gábor Benedek16637
István Szondy16640
Aladár Kovácsi16689
2SwedenSWE182Silver
Lars Hall18232
Thorsten Lindqvist18272
Claes Egnell18278
3FinlandFIN213Bronze
Ole Mannonen21360
Lauri Vilkko21361
Olavi Rokka21392
4United StatesUSA215
Frederick Denman21559
Thad McArthur21565
Guy Troy21591
5Soviet UnionURS293
Igor Novikov29354
Pavel Rakityansky293117
Aleksandr Dekhayev293122
6BrazilBRA313
Eduardo Leal Medeiros31377
Aloysio Borges313107
Eric Marques313129
7ChileCHI336
Nilo Floody336101
Hernán Fuentes336114
Luis Carmona336121
8ArgentinaARG355
Luis Riera35594
Carlos Velázquez355116
Jorge Cáceres355145
9SwitzerlandSUI356
Werner Vetterli356101
Werner Schmid356105
Hardy Minder356150
10Great BritainGBR373
Jack Lumsdaine37391
John Hewitt373130
Jervis Percy373152
11ItalyITA427
Alfonso Marotta427129
Duilio Brignetti427143
Giulio Palmonella427155
12FranceFRA441
André Lacroix441106
Bertrand de Montaudoüin441166
Christian Palant441169
13UruguayURU495
Alberto Ortiz495119
Lem Martínez495175
Américo González495201
14MexicoMEX524
José Pérez524154
Antonio Almada524180
David Romero524190
15PortugalPOR546
Ricardo Durão546167
José Pereira546182
António Jonet546197
DNFUnified Team of GermanyGER
Adolf Harder
Berthold Slupik
Dietloff Kapp