The Soviets attended the London Olympics in 1948 but only as observers in preparation for Helsinki four years later. In 1949 they issued two sets of national sporting endeavour of the sort they might have expected to meet, though "Parachuting" never made the cut. The second set presaged the Winter Olympics, featuring such sports as ski-jumping and ice-hockey, as well as gymnastics and weightlifting. And this one...



... which, according to the catalogue, is "Shooting Wolves"! That one was perhaps considered too specialist - though the Oslo games of winter 1952 did include, as a 'demonstration sport', the Russian game of "Bandy" (sic). (It's a form of hockey, apparently.)

On a different note, the Soviets issued a 1949 Christmas set! At least, they put out two stamps known to the cataloguers as 'Peace Propaganda', featuring the slogans 'For Peace!' (in Russian and English) and 'Down With the Instigators of War!', on December 25th.

These are worth a closer look - down in the bottom left-hand corner cowers such an instigator, in top hat and bow tie, clutching what I think is a fizzling bomb of the sort commonly supposed to have been used by Russian anarchists of an earlier generation!

The image is unclear, perhaps deliberately. It is, of course, common graphic shorthand for a capitalist. Given that 1949 saw the resurgence of Stalin's anti-Semitic pogroms, might it also represent a Jew? If so, it's a step beyond what any of the Third Reich stamp designers dared feature in the previous decade.