Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1940, Page 162

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LE NORD
financial support, and public enthusiasm for the Olympic Games
— thanks to the achievements of Finnish athletes — had been
high for years.
In the circumstances the veritable Olympic fever that ran
through the Finnish nation in those sultry July days is easily
understood. The athletic world rejoiced, business men saw their
chance, the Press published daily page after page of news and
articles bearing in one way or another on the Olympic Games
and on the problems it raised in a small country which had
suddenly been appointed to play the host to the whole world.
The actual work of organization for the XII Olympic Games
can be said to have begun in Finland on August i8th 1938, when
the Organization Committee was founded.
The Chairman chosen for the Organization Committee of
the XII Olympic Games was Mr. J. Rangell, Director of the
Bank of Finland; the other members were Consul Ernst Krogius,
who represented the International Olympic Committee in Fin-
land, Dr. Urho Kekkonen, then Minister of the Interior and
Chairman of the Finnish Olympic Committee, Lieutenant-
General Hugo Österman and Mr. Mauno Pekkala, Chief Direc-
tor of the Forestry Board, the two last-named representing the
Finnish Government, and as the representatives of the Municip-
ality of Helsinki, Erik von Frenckell, Municipal Real Estate
Manager, and Dr. Johan Helo, Municipal Financial Manager.
The Organization Committee held its first meeting at the Bank
of Finland on August i9th 1938.
Characteristic of athletic life in Finland is the fact that nearly
all the members of the Organization Committee had once been
active athletes. Chairman Rangell won the Finnish hop-step-
and-jump championship in 1912 with a winning result of 14.09
metres. Kekkonen was Finnish high-jump champion in 1924,
when he cleared 185 cms. Krogius won a Bronze Medal for
Finland at the Stockholm Olympic Games in 1912 in the yacht-
ing events. Chief Director Pekkala, now Minister of Finance,
was an all-round athlete in his youth.
The Organization Committee, which has so far held 75
meetings, had to decide in all haste a great number of important
questions in the autum of 1938. The brief period left for
preparations did not allow of much time for reflection. The
date of the Games had to be decided at a minimum’s notice,
the extensive daily programme for the Games drafted, invitations