1948 Summer Olympics postal vote, gave the summer Games to London and the winter competition to St Moritz. London was selected ahead of Baltimore, Minneapolis, Lausanne, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. London, which had previously hosted the 1908 Summer Olympics, became the second city to host the Olympics twice; Paris hosted the event in 1900 and 1924. London later became the first city to host the Olympics for a third time when the city hosted the 2012 Summer Olympics. Lord Burghley, a gold medal winner at the 1928 Olympics, member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and President of the Amateur Athletics Association was
Summer Olympic Games distance was chosen to ensure that the race finished in front of the box occupied by the British royal family. Thus the marathon had been for the first games in 1896, but was subsequently varied by up to due to local conditions such as street and stadium layout. At the six Olympic games between 1900 and 1920, the marathon was raced over six distances. At the end of the 1908 marathon the Italian runner Dorando Pietri was first to enter the stadium, but he was clearly in distress, and collapsed of exhaustion before he could complete the event. He was