1952 Winter Olympics

Updated August 28, 2020 | Infoplease Staff

Oslo

Dick Button, who had revolutionized figure skating with his athletic jumps and spins at St. Moritz in 1948, repeated his gold medal performance in '52. The 22–year-old Harvard senior also won the world championship for the fifth straight year, then turned pro.

Andrea Mead Lawrence, a 19–year-old whose parents built the Pico Peak ski resort in Vermont became the first U.S. skier to win two Olympic gold medals, taking both the slalom and giant slalom.

The star of the Games, however, was 28–year-old Norwegian truck driver Hjalmar Andersen who, urged on by his cheering countrymen, won three speed skating gold medals in three days and set Olympic records in two of the races.

The U.S. finished second to Norway in the overall medal count and was runner-up to Canada in hockey. The gold medal was the Canadians' seventh in eight Olympics and, as it turned out, their last for fifty years.