Olympic Legends - Humble beginnings

The glitz and glamour that one finds at an Olympic basketball tournament in the modern era was nowhere to be found back in 1936, when the Berlin Games were staged.

The game, which had already been around for 45 years after being invented by Dr James Naismith in Springfield, Massachusetts, was making its Olympic debut in Germany.

Things were so different that in Berlin, players over 6ft 2in in height were supposed to be banned from competing.

That rule was taken away after a complaint by the United States, who had Joe Fortenberry and Willard Schmidt (both 6ft 8in), Frank Lubin (6ft 7in) and Ralph Bishop (6ft 3in) on their roster.

As for the games, they weren’t played on a hardwood floor in a gym, but an outdoor clay and sand court.

Imagine the scene when it rained, and rained hard - which it did!

The title game was played after a day of rain and the wet stuff even fell during the Olympic Final, leaving the spectators soaked.

Conditions were not ideal for basketball, so it was not surprising that a low-scoring Final was played with the United States beating Canada, 19-8.

It wasn't as low-scoring as the first result.

The Berlin Olympics were held three years before the start of World War 2, but Spain’s Civil War had started less than a month earlier and that prevented their national team from showing up to play the United States in their first game.

The Americans were declared winners and awarded a 2-0 result – the first of five victories for that United States team.

FIBA