For the first time at any Olympiad, more than 4,000 athletes participated in the Summer Games, the first to be held in London since 1908. After a prologue showing highlights from the Winter Games in St. Moritz, track and field predominates, with Fanny Blankers-Koen, the “Flying Dutchwoman”, winning four gold medals, and new heroes like distance runner Emil Zatopek and sprinter and hurdler Harrison Dillard coming to the fore. Germany and Japan had not been invited to take part, and the Soviet Union refused to send a team, but 59 nations came to London notwithstanding. The Marathon, as so often in the Summer Games, provides some of the most absorbing moments.