1952 Olympic Games, Helsinki
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Cold War tensions were beginning to reach a head by the time the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki, Finland rolled around. Cold War issues would make repeated appearances over the then-future of the Olympic Games, but Helsinki marked the first of those issues.
That year marked the first time a team from Russia, participating as the USSR, had been in the Olympic Games after a 40-year gap. The Soviet Bloc, or the Eastern Bloc, largely comprised countries that had political affiliations with communist states in Eastern Europe. The Western Bloc, meanwhile, comprised all the countries allied with the United States and NATO, and tensions between the two blocs had reached a peak that year.
Matters got so tense at the time that the USSR team suggested they would house their team in the Russian city of Leningrad (the modern-day St. Petersburg) and fly their athletes to Helsinki each day. That idea was eventually vetoed, with an entirely separate Olympic village created for all Eastern Bloc athletes in the nearby Finnish city of Otaniemi.
Germany and Japan had also rejoined the Olympics that year, in the immediate, jarring aftermath of the Second World War; East Germany had wanted to participate in the Olympics but the team was not allowed to participate, with West German athletes taking part under the German flag.
