Baron Takeichi Nishi of Japan, won the show jumping competition but would later stun the world in a totally different way. As a commander of a tank battalion in the second world war, he led his troops in a mass suicide in Iwo Jima, rather than surrendering to enemy.

George Roth went to the Olympic Games without visions of glorious victory. His goal was something much more basic: food. Unemployed and on the verge of starvation, this victim of Great Depression, came to the Olympic village to collect food for his wife and baby girl. On a whim he competed in the club-swinging gymnastics' event (since discontinued). He won a gold medal and then left the cheering stadium to hitchhike home.

James Carlton of Australia became the consensus
favorite to win the 200m sprint, when he set a 20.6 world
record. However Carlton stunned his competitors when he did
not show up for the Games. He had recently chosen a "different
track" and was now a monk living in a monastery.

	India, as usual in those days, won the field hockey competition, out- scoring Japan and the United States 35-2. In search of funds to pay their for their Olympic journey the Indian team approached Mahatma Gandhi to lodge an appeal for contributions. The Great-Soul's reply was rather disappointing - he wanted to know "what's hockey?".