Lennart Hedmark preparing to throw a javalin

1972 Munich Olympics

  • NUMBER OF PENN STATERS COMPETING: 5
  • NUMBER OF PENN STATERS IN ALL ROLES: 8
  • NUMBER OF OLYMPIC ALTERNATES: 1

 

The 1972 Munich Olympics are best remembered for the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes taken hostage in the Olympic Village by eight Palestinians affiliated with the Black September Organization. Despite the incident, the Olympics went on in Germany. In the process, five Penn Staters competed in Bavaria.

Jane Barkman Brown captured her second Olympic swimming gold as part of the 4×100-meter freestyle relay team. Sprint specialist Michael Sands competed in three events on the track for the Bahamas. Jim Culhane competed for the U.S. gymnastics team, while Steven Hayden finished 27th in the 50-kilometer race walk. Though few medals were won in Munich by the Nittany Lions family, one athlete in particular made his mark in the field.

 

Profile: Lennart Hedmark

Lennart Hedmark
Lennart Hedmark (Pennsylvania State University, Intercollegiate Athletics, Athlete and Athletics personnel files)

Though he spent just two years competing for Penn State in track and field, Swedish javelin specialist and decathlete Lennart Hedmark remains one of the most significant Nittany Lions to compete on the Olympic stage — even though he never won a single medal in Olympic competition.

Penn State coach Chick Werner spotted Hedmark even earlier during a 1961 Scandanavian tour, and the Swedish thrower relocated to State College in September 1963 with Swedish pole vaulter Karl-Gustav Berlin. While at Penn State, Hedmark broke the NCAA freshman record in the javelin in 1964. Hedmark traveled to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics for Swedenafter his freshman season, though he did not make it on to the final list of after faltering during a pre-Olympics dual meet against Italy. After the Olympics, Hedmark returned to State College and finished in second place in the javelin at the 1965 NCAA championships.

Hedmark and Berlin left Penn State in 1966 and relocated to California, completing their college careers at Cal State-Los Angeles. While in California, Hedmark shifted his focus from the javelin to the pentathlon and decathlon. After missing out on the chance to compete in Tokyo in the javelin, Hedmark made the Swedish Olympic team in 1968 in the decathlon and finished 11th. Injuries forced Hedmark to pull out of the 1972 Munich Olympics after just three of ten events in the decathlon. He returned four years later to the Olympics in Montreal and placed a career-best eighth in Olympic competition.

During his career, Hedmark captured three Swedish national championships in the javelin, five in the pentathlon, and eight in the decathlon between 1963 and 1977. His mark of 76 career decathlon events remains fourth on the all-time list among decathletes.

 

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