Nick Vukmanic portrait

1940 Tokyo/Helsinki Olympics

  • NUMBER OF PENN STATERS QUALIFIED: 2
  • NUMBER OF PENN STATERS IN ALL ROLES: 2
  • NUMBER OF OLYMPIC ALTERNATES: 1

 

No Penn State athletes qualified for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, and World War II would force an even bigger gap in Nittany Lions history on the international stage. The International Olympic Committee originally selected Tokyo to host the 1940 Olympics in 1936. By 1938, Japanese war efforts forced the Japanese government to forfeit their host duties. The forfeiture left the IOC scrambling, and they elected in 1938 to relocate the 1940 Olympics to Helsinki, Finland — which had finished as the runner-up to Tokyo in the 1936 voting.

War, however, prevented Helsinki from hosting the Olympics until 1952. Tokyo waited until 1964 for its first chance to host the Olympics.

 

Profile: Nick Vukmanic

Nick Vukmanic portrait
Nick Vukmanic portrait (1940 LaVie, p. 299)

Two Penn State athletes qualified to compete in Tokyo/Helsinki, though only one would ever get the chance to compete on an Olympic stage. Barney Ewell eventually represented the United States on the track at the 1948 Olympics in London. His fellow Nittany Lion slated to compete in 1940, Nick Vukmanic, would never come as close to his moment of Olympic glory as he did at the end of his Penn State career.

Even before Vukmanic attended Penn State from 1936 through 1940, he was already well known in Pennsylvania as a stellar javelin thrower. His Pennsylvania high school record of 206 feet, 10 inches stayed on the books for more than two decades, and in 1939 Vukmanic broke the Penn State javelin record by more than nine feet during the Penn Relays. In his senior year, Vukmanic was the IC4A champion in the javelin.

Selected to throw for the United States in Helsinki, Vukmanic never got his chance to compete on the global stage. After college, Vukmanic went on to work as an electrical engineer for Westinghouse, where he showed off his javelin skills during company picnics. He later relocated to Chicago, where the former Penn State field star suffered a heart attack during a fishing trip on Lake Michigan and passed away at 51 years old.

 

SOURCES AND ADDITIONAL READING

  • Susan Collins, The 1940 Tokyo Games: The Missing Olympics (New York: Routledge, 2007).
  • “Nick Vukmanic Passes Away,” The Morning Herald (Uniontown, PA), May 3, 1969, 6.
  • John L. O’Hara, “Earlier Days at Mather Recalled,” The Morning Herald (Uniontown, PA), October 7, 1964, 17.
  • “Senior AAU Meet Will Continue in Stadium Tonight,” Fresno (CA) Bee, June 29, 1940, A1.
  • “Two Champions Retain Titles in PIAA Meets,” Lebanon (PA) Daily News, May 29, 1961, 12.
  • “Vukmanic Dies,” Pittsburgh (PA) Press, April 30, 1969, 78.
  • “Westinghouse Outing Today,” Pittsburgh (PA) Press, August 10, 1940, 3.
  • Robert F. Wilcox, “Track Marks Collapse in AAU Classic,” Pittsburgh (PA) Press, July 1, 1940, 25.