Floor Exercise, Men

This event was called free-handed exercises in both the 1932 Official Report and the Programme of Events. The floor exercises were carried out as a separate competition and were not part of the individual all-around, but were oddly conducted as a section of the team all-around, being noted as a Preliminary to the Team Competition in the Programme of Events. Only participants competing in the team all-around could start in this event (with an exception noted below), although the score strangely did not count for the team all-around, either. Only one individual routine was performed.

The Swiss did not have a team, but Georges Miez received special permission to start, and he won the silver medal, beaten only by the Hungarian István Pelle, the silver medalist in the individual all-around. Bronze went to the Italian Mario Lertora.

Miez was the only Swiss participant in Los Angeles, and in his four Olympic appearances from 1924-36 he won four golds, three silvers, and one bronze medal. In Los Angeles, he considered his floor exercise scores very devalued and resigned in anger from the competitions, after loudly confronting the judges with no success. He then embarked on a trip throughout the US, where he also worked and held speeches at universities. Nonetheless, with other Swiss gymnasts, Miez pointed the way ahead for the development of floor gymnastics, and the Swiss team introduced a flowing style of movement.