Latvia at the 1932 Summer Olympics

Athletics competitions were held between 31 July and 7 August 1932 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.^[9] Jānis Daliņš and Jānis Dimza participated in two events in the competition.^[5][6]

Daliņš participated in the men's 50 km racewalk event, which was conducted for the first time in Summer Olympics.^[10] Dāliņš started competing in race walk events from the age of 22, and was the Latvian record holder in the 5 km race walk. He competed in his first international race in 1929. Prior to the Olympics, he set a world record in the 25 mile race walk in June 1932 in the Latvian capital of Riga.^[11] He won a silver medal after completing the course in over four hours and 57 minutes, more than seven minutes behind the first placed Tommy Green of Great Britain.^[10] This was the country's first ever Olympic medal.^[2]

Dimza competed in the Men's decathlon event held on 5 and 6 August 1932. He completed only eight out of ten events, and was not classified in the final ranking.^[12]

Track & road events

Athlete	Event	Result	Rank
Jānis Daliņš	Men's 50 km walk	4:57:20

Combined events

The art competition consisted a competition between various entries to be sent by the National Olympic Committees across the specified categories. Only artworks by living artists were allowed, the works had to have been produced not earlier than 1 January 1928, and it was not allowed to submit works from the previous Olympics. The works were to be sent to the Olympic Committee by 1 June 1932.^[13]

For the art competitions, medals were awarded to the winning artists during the Games. However, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) later classified these art competitions as unofficial Olympic events, and do not appear in the IOC database.^[14] The medals were not counted towards the final medal tally.^[15] Three Latvian artists participated in the art competitions.^[5]