Athletics at the 1932 Summer Olympics – Men's marathon

This was the ninth appearance of the event, which is one of 12 athletics events to have been held at every Summer Olympics. Returning runners from 1928 included sixth-place finisher Seiichiro Tsuda of Japan, eighth-place finisher Sam Ferris of Great Britain, ninth-place finisher Albert Michelsen of the United States, and tenth-place finisher Clifford Bricker of Canada. Ferris, along with Dunky Wright (20th in 1928) were among the best-known runners who competed; Armas Toivonen led the always-strong Finnish team. Finland was without Paavo Nurmi, who would have been favored but was suspended just days before the Games began for allegedly accepting excessive expense money in violation of amateurism rules.[2]

Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia each made their first appearance in Olympic marathons. The United States made its ninth appearance, the only nation to have competed in each Olympic marathon to that point.

As all Olympic marathons, the competition was a single race. The now-standard marathon distance of 26 miles, 385 yards was run over a course that "started and finished at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, but was a loop course around Los Angeles."[2]

Prior to this competition, the existing world and Olympic records were as follows.

World record	Albert Michelsen (USA)	2:29:01.8	Port Chester, United States	12 October 1925
Olympic record	Hannes Kolehmainen (FIN)	2:32:35.8(*)	Antwerp, Belgium	22 August 1920

(*) Course was list at 42.75 kilometres.