The 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia were the first games to be held in the Southern Hemisphere and were beset with problems at the beginning.

Many members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had doubts about staging the Games in Melbourne due to the reversal of the seasons, which would mean that the Games would be held during the Northern Hemisphere’s winter and many athletes didn’t have the funds to enable them to spend time acclimatizing before the Games began, so they had to retain their peak fitness for a longer period than usual.

Consequently, Melbourne won the vote to stage the Games by only one vote over Buenos Aires in Argentina.

Further doubts were raised when the Australian government refused to shorten their usual quarantine period for horses entering the country, so Stockholm in Sweden was selected as an alternative venue for the equestrian events which were held in June, 5 months before the Games officially began.

Australian politicians facing a housing shortage were also arguing over the financing of the Games, with the Premier of Victoria, Henry Bolte, refusing to allocate any money for the Olympic Village and also, the country’s Prime Minister, Robert Menzies refusing to allow the use of federal funds for the project. Eventually with the aid of a federal loan the village was commissioned and based in Heidleberg West, a suburb of Melbourne.

All of this internal turmoil prompted IOC President Avery Bundage to suggest that Rome, due to host the Games in 1960, were so far ahead of Melbourne in preparations that they should be considered to replace them in 1956, a view he still held as late as April of 1955 when making a site visit to Melbourne. By the beginning of 1956 however, it became apparent that Melbourne would be ready for the Olympic Games.

The Australian internal wrangling wasn’t to be the only political turmoil to encounter the Games of the XVIth Oympiad however.

Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon announced their withdrawal from the Games due to the Suez crisis and the Soviet Union’s invasion of Hungary saw The Netherlands, Spain, Liechtenstein & Switzerland announce that they, too, would boycott the Games and finally, 2 weeks before the Games were due to begin, the People’s Republic of China withdrew because the Republic of China under the name of Formosa (now Taiwan) had been allowed to compete.

Once the Games began though, they were a roaring success, the opening ceremony took place at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and the Games were officially opened by Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, with the Olympic flame being lit by Australian athlete Ron Clarke.

The Australians were excellent hosts and the Games were known as the “friendly games” despite the incident in the Olympic pool known as the “Blood in the Water” match. This occurred during the water polo semi final match between the Soviet Union and Hungary on December 6th when a Hungarian player, Ervin Zador, was punched by Valentine Prokopov a member of the Soviet team and had to leave the pool for the last 2 minutes of the match with blood pouring from underneath his left eye. Police had to restore order to the enraged crowd and the game was abandoned with Hungary leading by 4-0. The result was allowed to stand and Hungary went on to win the gold medal.

Another memorable Hungarian performance in these Games came from the boxer, Lazlo Papp, who became the first boxer to win 3 Olympic titles.

British boxers to win gold were Dick McTaggart in the lightweight division and Terry Spink in the flyweight. Other British boxers to win medals were Nicholas Gargano (Welterweight) and John McCormack (Light-middleweight) who both got bronze medals and Thomas Nicholl who won silver in the Featherweight division.

The United States men dominated the track & field events by winning 15 of the 24 events with Bobby Morrow leading the way by winning 3 gold medals in the 100m, 200m & the 4 x 100m relay an achievement equalled in the women’s events by the Australian Betty Cuthbert. Only 2 World records were recorded in the track & field events in Melbourne, Mildred McDaniel set a high jump record of 5 feet 9 ¼ inches to win her gold medal, the only American woman to do so in this event and Egil Danielsen of Norway threw 281 feet 2 ½ inches in the Javelin for his.

Britain’s Chris Brasher (who was Roger Bannister’s pacesetter when he broke the 4 minute mile) won a gold medal in the 3000m steeplechase, but not without controversy. Brasher had finished well ahead of the rest of the field only to be disqualified for interfering with Norway’s Ernst Larsen. Hungary’s Sandor Rozsnyoi was declared the winner but Brasher appealed and was supported by Larsen, fourth placed Heinz Laufer of Germany and Rozsnyoi himself. The decision was reversed and Brasher got his gold medal and in so doing became the first Briton to win gold in a track & field event since 1932.Other British medallists on the track were Derek Johnson who won silver in the 800m plus Gordon Pirie (silver) and Gordon Ibbotson (bronze) both in the 5000m.

America’s Pat McCormick won both diving events as she did 4 years earlier in Helsinki with other notable performances coming from Soviet gymnasts Viktor Chukarin who won 5 medals including 3 gold, Larissa Latynina who won 6 including 4 gold, Agnes Keleti of Hungary, who won 3 gold & 2 silver & Soviet athlete Vladimir Kuts who won the 5,000m & 10,000m titles previously held by the great Czechoslovakian runner Emil Zatopek who himself retired from international competition at the end of these Games after finishing 6th in the marathon.

Also retiring after these Games was the Australian Shirley Strickland (de la Hunty) who won 2 gold medals in Melbourne in the 4 x 100m relay and also in the 80m hurdles, retaining her title won in Helsinki 4 years earlier. Strickland had won 3 gold, 1 silver & 3 bronze medals between 1948 and 1956, and in celebration of her achievements a statue of her was erected outside the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

It was in the swimming pool where the Australians really excelled though, winning all of the freestyle races for men & women, with Dawn Fraser winning 2 gold medals in the 100m & 4 x 100m freestyle events and her compatriot Murray Rose became the 1st male swimmer to win 2 freestyle events (400m &1500m) since Johnny Weismuller in 1924. Rose also got a 3rd gold in the team event. (4 x 200m freestyle)

Great Britain gained 2 medals in the pool, gold for Judith Grinham and a bronze for Margaret Edwards both in the 100m backstroke.

The closing of the Games saw for the first time, what was to become an Olympic tradition, at the suggestion of a 17 year old Australian, John Ian Wing, instead of the teams marching behind their national flag as they did in the opening ceremony, the athletes mingled with one another as they paraded around the stadium as a symbol of global unity.