Olympics 1924

Highlights

The opening ceremony and several sporting events took place in the Olympic Stadium of Colombes (official name Stade olympique Yves-du-Manoir), which had a capacity of 45,000 in 1924.
This VIII Olympiad was the last one organised under the presidency of Pierre de Coubertin.
The "Flying Finns" dominated the long distance running whilst the British and Americans dominated the shoter events. Paavo Nurmi won the 1500 m and 5000 m (which were held with only an hour between them) and the cross country run (held in extremely hot weather). Ville Ritola won the 10000 m and the 3000 m steeplechase, while finishing second to Nurmi on the 5000 m and cross country. Albin Stenroos won the marathon, while the Finnish team (with Nurmi and Ritola) was victorious in the 3000 m and cross country team events.
British runners Harold Abrahams won the 100m and Eric Liddell won the gold medal in the and 400 m, respectively. Their stories are depicted in the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire. In addition Douglas Lowe won the 800m
The marathon distance was fixed at 42.195 km, from the distance run at the 1908 Summer Olympics in London.
Swimmer Johnny Weissmuller won three gold medals in swimming and one bronze in water polo.
Fencer Roger Ducret of France won five medals, of which three were gold.
In gymnastics 24 men score a perfect 10.Twenty-three of them score it in the now discontinued event of rope-climbing. Albert Seguin scores a 10 here and also a perfect 10 on side vault.
The Olympic motto "Citius, Altius, Fortius" (Faster, Higher, Stronger), was used for the first time.
Ireland was given formal recognition as an independent nation in the Olympic Movement in Paris in 1924 and it was at these games that Ireland made its first appearance in an Olympic Games as an independent nation.
Originally called Semaine des Sports d'Hiver ("International Winter Sports Week") and held in association with the 1924 Summer Olympics, the sports competitions held in Chamonix between 25 January and 5 February 1924 were later designated by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as the I Olympic Winter Games. (1924 Winter Olympics)

1924 Olympics, Chamonix

The first Winter Olympic Games were actually called “The International Winter Sports Week” and went on for 11 days in the French Alps, 60 miles northeast of Grenoble.

As expected, the Scandinavians dominated the 16–nation field. Norway and Finland won 27 of the 43 medals available, including all four Nordic events and four of the five speed skating races. Speed skater Clas Thunberg of Finland and Norwegian Nordic skier and jumper Thorleif Haug each won three gold medals.

American speed skater Charles Jewtraw won the first event of the Games with an upset in the 500 meters. But the most remarkable U.S. medal was the bronze won by Anders Haugen in the ski jump. Due to a scoring error at the time he didn't receive it until 1974 – when he was 83 years old.

In its first four hockey games, Canada beat Switzerland 33–0, Czechoslovakia 30–0, Sweden 22–0 and Great Britain 19–2, before winning the tournament with a 6–1 victory over the U.S. in the final.

Olympics 1932

1932 Olympics - Los Angeles

Despite a world-wide economic depression and predictions that the 1932 Summer Olympics were doomed to failure, 37 countries sent over 1,300 athletes to southern California and the Games were a huge success.

Energized by perfect weather and the buoyant atmosphere of the first Olympic Village, the competition was fierce. Sixteen world and Olympic records fell in men's track and field alone.

In women's track, 21-year-old Babe Didrikson, who had set world records in the 80-meter hurdles, javelin and high jump at the AAU Olympic Trials three weeks before, came to L.A. and announced, “I am out to beat everybody in sight.” She almost did too–winning the hurdles and javelin, but taking second in the high jump (despite tying teammate Jean Shiley for first) when her jumping style was ruled illegal.

Didrikson's heroics, along with American Eddie Tolan's double in the 100 and 200 meters and Italian Luigi Beccali's upset victory in the 1,500, were among the Games' highlights, but they didn't quite make up for the absence of Finland's famed distance runner Paavo Nurmi.

Just before the Games, the IOC said that Nurmi would not be allowed to participate in his fourth Olympics because he had received excessive expense money on a trip to Germany in 1929. The ruling came as no surprise in the track world where it was said, “Nurmi has the lowest heartbeat and the highest asking price of any athlete in the world.”

The Japanese men and American women dominated in swimming, each winning five of six events. Helene Madison of the U.S. won two races and anchored the winning relay team.

Games of the X Olympiad

Because the 1932 Olympics were held in the middle of the Great Depression and in the comparatively remote city of Los Angeles, half as many athletes took part as had in 1928. Nevertheless, the level of competition was extremely high and 18 world records were either broken or equalled. The crowds set records too, starting with the 100,000 people who attended the Opening Ceremony. The 1932 Olympics were the first to last 16 days. The duration of the Olympics has remained between 15 and 18 days ever since. Between 1900 and 1928, no Summer Olympics was shorter than 79 days. For the first time, the male athletes were housed in a single Olympic Village. (The women stayed in a luxury hotel.) At the victory ceremonies, the medal winners stood on a victory stand and the flag of the winner was raised. Official automatic timing was introduced for the track events, as was the photo-finish camera. 14-year-old Japanese Kusuo Kitamura won the 1,500m freestyle to become the youngest male in any sport ever to earn a gold medal in an individual event. 21-year-old American Babe Didrikson qualified for all five women’s track and field events, but was only allowed to compete in three. She won the javelin throw and set world records in the high jump and the 80m hurdles. Ivar Johansson, a Swedish policeman, won gold medals in both freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling. Another Swedish wrestler, Carl Westergren, won his third Greco-Roman title, each in a different division. In the spirit of fair play, British fencer Judy Guinness gave up her hopes for a gold medal when she pointed out to officials that they had not noticed two touches scored against her by her final opponent, Ellen Preis of Austria.

Sources

Olympics 1940

1940 - Not Held

The 1940 Olympic Games were originally scheduled to be held in Tokyo, Japan, but several countries planned to boycott the Games there because Japan was waging an aggressive war in Asia and then Japan itself decided the Games would be a distraction to their military goals. The Games were then rescheduled to be held in Helsinki, Finland, but the start of World War II in 1939 caused the Games to be cancelled.

The anticipated 1940 Summer Olympics, which were to be officially known as Games of the XII Olympiad and originally programmed to be celebrated between September 21 and October 6, 1940 in Tokyo, Empire of Japan, were cancelled due to World War II. The Games were retracted from Tokyo by the IOC due to the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. They were awarded to the runner-up Helsinki, Finland, and were scheduled to be celebrated between July 20 to August 4, 1940. When World War II broke out, the Summer Games were cancelled indefinitely - resuming in London in 1948.

With the Olympics cancelled, the major international athletics event of the year turned out to be the annual Finland-Sweden athletics international, held at the new Helsinki Olympic Stadium, exceptionally held as a triple international between Finland, Sweden and Germany.

Helsinki eventually held the 1952 Summer Olympics and Tokyo the 1964 Summer Olympics.

Despite the cancellation of the 1940 Olympics, the Tokyo organizing committee released its budget for the Games. In a departure from standard practice, the budget included all capital outlays as well as direct organizing costs. The total budget was ¥20.1 million, one-third of which would be paid for by the Tokyo metropolitan government.

About 1940 Olympics

While Germany prepares to hold the 1936 Olympic Games, the world's two other great troublemaking nations, Italy and Japan, have been quarreling bitterly for the honor of the 1940 Olympics. For Japan, whose sprint swimmers made an astounding sweep of the 1932 Olympics, the quarrel has become a bitter national issue, a crucial matter of forcing the Western World to admit once and for all that it no longer considers the Japanese an inferior race.

Mouthpiece of Japan's claims is the great Japanese Liberal, Count Michimasa Soyejima, insurance man and onetime Imperial Chamberlain, who claims that Benito Mussolini told him last February that Italy would withdraw in Japan's favor. A month later, at the Oslo, Norway meeting of the International Olympic Committee, the Italian delegates denied this, reasserted Italy's claim. Last week, with a war and the possibility of a League of Nations boycott on his hands, Benito Mussolini heard with dismay that nonLeague Member Japan might cooperate in a League boycott. Japanese goods looked far better last week than Olympic Games five years off. Last week Count Soyejima announced that he had received a personal letter from Mussolini, promising to withdraw Italy's claims finally in Japan's favor.

Olympics 1948

Games of the XIV Olympiad

The 1948 London Games were the first to be shown on home television, although very few people in Great Britain actually owned sets. A women’s canoeing event was held for the first time - and won by Karen Hoff of Denmark. 17-year-old American Bob Mathias won the decathlon only four months after taking up the sport. He is the youngest athlete in Olympic history to win a men’s athletics event. Two athletes who were Olympic champions in 1936 managed to defend their titles twelve years later. They were Ilona Elek of Hungary in women’s foil fencing and Jan Brzak of Czechoslovakia in the canoeing Canadian pairs 1,000m. Fanny Blankers-Koen of the Netherlands was the world record holder in six events, but, according to the rules of the day, was only allowed to enter four. She won all four: the 100m dash, the 80m hurdles, the 200m and the 4x100m relay. Concert pianist Micheline Ostermeyer of France won both the shot put and the discus throw. Karoly Takacs was a member of the Hungarian world champion pistol shooting team in 1938 when a grenade shattered his right hand - his pistol hand. Takacs taught himself to shoot with his left hand and, ten years later, he won an Olympic gold medal in the rapid-fire pistol event.

1948 Olympics, London

The Summer Olympics were scheduled for Tokyo in 1940, but by mid-1938, Japan was at war with China and withdrew as host. The IOC immediately transferred the Games to Helsinki and the Finns eagerly began preparations only to be invaded by the Soviet Union in 1939.

By then, of course, Germany had marched into Poland and World War II was on. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor two years later, and the bombs didn't stop falling until 1945. Against this backdrop of global conflict, the Olympic Games were cancelled again in 1940 and '44. Many of the participants in the 1936 Games died in the war.

Eager to come back after two dormant Olympiads, the IOC offered the 1948 Games to London. Much of the British capital had been reduced to rubble in the blitz, but the offer was accepted and the Games went on–successfully, without frills, and without invitations extended to Germany and Japan. The Soviet Union was invited, but chose not to show.

The United States reclaimed its place at the top of the overall medal standings, but the primary individual stars were a 30-year-old Dutch mother of two and a 17-year-old kid from California.

Fanny Blankers-Koen duplicated Jesse Owens' track and field grand slam of 12 years before by winning the 100-meter and 200-meter runs, the 80-meter hurdles, and anchoring the women's 4x100-meter relay.

And Bob Mathias, just two months after graduating from Tulare High School, won the gold medal in the decathlon, an event he had taken up for the first time earlier in the year.

Olympics 1956

Event

Once the games were underway, though, they certainly went well. The Aussies were excellent hosts, both friendly and efficient. The games were known as the "friendly games". They were also well represented in competition. Betty Cuthbert, an 18-year-old from Sydney, won the 100- and 200-metre dashes and ran a great final leg in the 4 x 100-meter relay to overcome Great Britain's lead and claim her third gold medal. The veteran Shirley Strickland repeated in the 80-metre hurdles and also ran on the relay team, running her career total to seven, three golds, a silver, and three bronze medals.

But it was in swimming that the Australians really shone. They won all of the freestyle races, men's and women's, and collected a total of eight gold, four silver and two bronze medals. Murray Rose became the first male swimmer to win two freestyle events since Johnny Weissmuller in 1924, while Dawn Fraser won gold medals in the 100-meter freestyle and as the leadoff swimmer on the 4 x 100-meter relay team.

Controversial judging prevented the United States from winning all four diving events, which had become almost customary. Pat McCormick again took gold medals in both the springboard and the platform, and Bob Clotworthy won the men's springboard. However, Gary Tobian was given unusually low scores by the Russian and Hungarian judges, and he finished second by just .03 to Mexico's Joaquim Capilla in the platform event.

United States men dominated track and field. They not only won 15 of 24 events, they swept four of them and finished first and second in five others. Bobby Joe Morrow led the way with gold medals in the 100- and 200-meter dashes and the 4 x 100-meter relay. Tom Courtney barely overtook Great Britain's Derek Johnson in the 800-meter run, then collapsed from the exertion and needed medical attention.

Vladimir Kuts of the Soviet Union ran away from his competition in the 5,000- and 10,000-meter runs, while Ireland's Ron Delaney ran a brilliant 53.8 over the last 400 meters to win the 1,500-meter run, in which favorite John Landy of Australia finished third.

There was a major upset, marred briefly by controversy, in the 3,000-meter steeplechase. Little-known Chris Brasher of Great Britain finished well ahead of the field, but judges announced that he was disqualified for interfering with Norway's Ernst Larsen, and they anointed Sandor Rozsnyoi of Hungary as the winner. Brasher's appeal, remarkably, was supported by Larsen, Rozsnyoi, and fourth-place finisher Heinz Laufer of Germany. The decision was reversed and Brasher became the first Briton to win a gold medal in track and field since 1932.

Coles' Olympic Games decorations, December, 1956. Bourke Street, Melbourne.

Only two world records were set in track and field. Mildred McDaniel, the only American woman to win gold in the sport, set a high jump record of 5 feet, 9 1/4 inches, and Egil Danielsen of Norway overcame a troublesome wind with a remarkable javelin throw of 281 feet, 2 1/2 inches.

Throughout the Olympics, Hungarian athletes were cheered by fans from Australia and other countries. Many of them gathered in the boxing arena when thirty-year-old Laszlo Papp of Hungary won his third gold medal by beating Jose Torres for the light-middleweight championship.

A few days later, the crowd was with the Hungarian water polo team in its match against the Soviet Union which became known as the Blood In The Water match. The game became rough and, when a Hungarian was forced to leave the pool with blood streaming from a cut over his eye, a riot almost broke out. But police restored order and the game was called early, with Hungary leading 4-0. The Hungarians went on to win the gold medal.

Despite the international tensions of 1956 -- or perhaps because of them -- a young Melbournian came up with a new idea for the closing ceremony. Instead of marching as teams, behind their national flags, the athletes mingled with one another as they paraded into and around the arena for a final appearance before the spectators. That began an Olympic tradition that has been followed ever since.

Games of the XVI Olympiad

Melbourne won the right to host the 1956 Olympics by one vote over Buenos Aires. Australian quarantine laws were too severe to allow the entry of foreign horses, so the equestrian events were held separately in Stockholm in June. The Melbourne Games were the first to be held in the southern hemisphere. Laszlo Papp of Hungary became the first boxer to win three gold medals. American Pat McCormick won both diving events, just as she had in 1952. Two athletes dominated the gymnastics competition. On the men’s side, Ukrainian Viktor Chukarin earned five medals, including three gold, to bring his career total to eleven medals, seven of them gold. Agnes Keleti of Hungary brought her career total to ten medals by winning four gold medals and two silver. The U.S. basketball team, led by Bill Russell and K.C. Jones, put on the most dominant performance in Olympic history, scoring more than twice as much as their opponents and winning each of their games by at least 30 points. U.S. weightlifter Paul Anderson weighed 137.9kg. In weightlifting, ties are broken by awarding the higher place to the athlete with the lower body weight. Incredibly, this worked to Anderson’s advantage when he tied for first with Humberto Selvetti of Argentina. Selvetti weighed 143.5kg. Prior to 1956, the athletes in the Closing Ceremony marched by nation, as they did in the Opening Ceremony. In Melbourne, following a suggestion by a young Australian named John Ian Wing, the athletes entered the stadium together during the Closing Ceremony, as a symbol of global unity.

Olympics 1964

Highlights

Yūji Koseki composed the theme song of the opening ceremony.
Yoshinori Sakai, who lit the Olympic Flame, was born in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, the day the atomic bomb was dropped.
Judo and volleyball, both popular sports in Japan, were introduced to the Olympics. Japan won three of the titles in judo, but Dutchman Anton Geesink won the Open category. The Japanese women's volleyball team won the gold medal, with the final being broadcasted live.
Reigning world champion Osamu Watanabe capped off his career with a gold medal for Japan in freestyle wrestling, surrendering no points and retiring from competition as the only undefeated Olympic champion to date at 189-0.
Soviet gymnast Larissa Latynina won two gold medals (both for the third time in a row in Team Competition and Floor Exercise events), a silver medal and two bronze medals. She ended her Olympic career and holds the record for most Olympic medals at 18 (9 gold, 5 silver, 4 bronze) since then.
Australian swimmer Dawn Fraser won the 100 m freestyle event for the third time in a row, a feat matched by Vyacheslav Ivanov in rowing's single scull event.
Don Schollander (USA) won four gold medals in swimming.
Abebe Bikila became the first person to win the Olympic marathon twice.
New Zealand's Peter Snell won a gold medal in both the 800 m and 1500 m.
The women's pentathlon was introduced.
American Billy Mills, a little-known distance runner, shocked everyone when he won the gold in the men's 10,000 m. No American had won it before and no American has won it since.
Bob Hayes won the 100m title in a time of 10.0 seconds, equalling the world record. He had run the distance in 9.9 seconds in the semifinal but this was not recognised as a world record as it was wind assisted.
Joe Frazier, future heavyweight champion of the world, won a gold medal for the USA in heavyweight boxing.
Unfortunately to Japan, several big international events took more attention during the Olympics, including the sudden removal of Nikita Khrushchev and the first nuclear test in China.

Games of the XVIII Olympiad

The 1964 Tokyo Games were the first to be held in Asia. The Japanese expressed their successful reconstruction after World War II by choosing as the final torchbearer Yoshinori Sakai, who was born in Hiroshima the day that that city was destroyed by an atomic bomb. Judo and volleyball were introduced to the Olympic programme. American swimmer Don Schollander won four gold medals. Abebe Bikila of Ethiopia became the first repeat winner of the marathon - less than six weeks after having his appendix removed. Russian rower Vyacheslav Ivanov won the single sculls for the third time, and Australian swimmer Dawn Fraser won the 100m freestyle for the third time. Al Oerter of the United States did the same in the discus throw despite a cervical disc injury that forced him to wear a neck harness and torn rib cartilage incurred a week before the competition. Hungarian water polo player Dezso Gyarmati won his fifth medal in a row. Another Hungarian, Greco-Roman wrestler Imre Polyak, finally won a gold medal after finishing second in the same division at the previous three Olympics. By winning two medals of each kind, Larysa Latynina of the Ukraine brought her career medal total to an incredible 18. She is also one of only four athletes in any sport to win nine gold medals.

Olympics 1972

Notable events

Mark Spitz, a swimmer from the United States, set a world record when he won seven gold medals (while on the way to setting a new world record for each of his seven gold medals) in a single Olympics, bringing his lifetime total to nine (he had won two golds in Mexico City's Games four years earlier). As a Jew, Spitz was forced to leave Munich before the closing ceremonies for his own protection, after fears arose that he would be an additional target of those responsible for the Munich massacre.
Olga Korbut, a tiny Soviet gymnast, became a media star after winning a gold medal in the team competition event, failing to win in the individual all-around after a fall (she was beaten by Lyudmilla Turischeva), and finally winning two gold medals in the Balance Beam and the floor exercise events.
In basketball, the United States' Olympic winning streak, which started in 1936, was ended by the Soviet team's victory in the gold medal game, which USA Basketball calls "the most controversial game in international basketball history" [1]. Doug Collins made two free throws with three seconds left to give the USA a 50-49 lead, despite the horn going off in the middle of his second attempt. The Soviets failed to score on the ensuing possession, but the clock was stopped at 0:01 after one official heard the earlier horn and the Soviets were frantically urging time-out. The clock was reset to three seconds and play began again. Again, the Soviets failed to score, time apparently expired, and the United States began celebrating, with ABC displaying the 50-49 margin as "final". However, after the vehement protests of FIBA secretary general R. William Jones of Great Britain, the referees added three seconds back to the clock due to error in re-starting the clock. Jones had no authority to intervene during a game, but his reputation was such that the officials dared not disobey him. The extra three seconds allowed the Soviet Union to have one more chance. The Soviets threw the ball downcourt, and Aleksandr Belov made a lay-up as time expired for the final margin of 51-50. A U.S. protest, filed after the match, was denied by FIBA, which voted 3-2 against the protest along Cold War lines (Italy and Puerto Rico voted in favor; Hungary, Poland, and Cuba voted against) and award the gold medal to the Soviets. The U.S. team voted unanimously to refuse the silver medal, and to this day still have not accepted them. They remain in a vault in Lausanne, Switzerland. USA team captain Kenny Davis even has written in his will that his wife and children can never accept the silver medal. The end of the USA-USSR gold medal game remains one of the most controversial events in Olympic history and has been the subject of numerous film and television specials, including HBO's documentary 0:03 from Gold.
Lasse Virén of Finland won the 5,000 and 10,000 m (the latter after a fall), a feat he would repeat in the 1976 Summer Olympics. The late United States middle-distance legend Steve Prefontaine finished a disappointing fourth in the 5,000 m after swapping the lead multiple times with the victorious Virén
Valeri Borzov won both the 100 m and 200 m in track and field. The top two US sprinters and medal favorites in the 100 m, Rey Robinson and Eddie Hayes, won their first rounds. But they were given the wrong starting time for the next round by their coach and missed the race, eliminating them.
Also in track and field, two black American 400 m runners, Vincent Matthews and Wayne Collett, acted casually on the medal stand, twirling their medals (gold and silver, respectively) and joking with one another as "The Star-Spangled Banner" was being played during the award ceremony. They were banned from the Olympics for life, as Tommie Smith and John Carlos were in the 1968 Summer Olympics.
Dave Wottle won the AAU 800 m title before equalling the world record over 800 m of 1:44.3 at the US Olympic Trials. In the Olympic 800 m final, Wottle immediately dropped to the rear of the field, and stayed there for the first 600 m, at which point he started to pass runner after runner up the final straightaway, finally grabbing the lead in the final metres to win by just 0.03 seconds ahead of the favorite, the Soviet Yevgeny Arzhonov. This gained him the nickname of "The Head Waiter." At the victory ceremony, Wottle unconsciously forgot to remove his golf cap. This was interpreted by some as a form of protest, but Wottle later apologized.
Australian swimmer Shane Gould won three gold medals a silver and a bronze medal at the age of 15.
Handball (last held in 1936) and Archery (last held in 1920) returned as Olympic sports after a long absence.
Slalom canoeing was held for the first time at the Olympics. Silvered by US Olympian, Christian Carbonara
Dan Gable won the gold medal in wrestling without having a single point scored against him.
Wim Ruska became the first judoka to win two gold medals.
For the first time, the Olympic Oath was taken by a representative of the referees.
On 11 September a small plane was stolen in Stuttgart and authorities received information that Arab terrorists were planning to drop a bomb on the final ceremonies. IOC officials and Chancellor Willy Brandt, who were attending the ceremonies, were informed. Defense minister Georg Leber had two fighter planes follow the stolen plane, with the intent of shooting it down should it approach Munich. Radar contact to the plane was lost. A short while later, radar contact to an unknown plane was established, but it turned out to be a civilian passenger aircraft. The stolen plane was never found.
Badminton and water skiing were the demo sports.

1972 Olympics, Munich

On Sept. 5, with six days left in the Games, eight Arab commandos slipped into the Olympic Village, killed two Israeli team members and seized nine others as hostages. Early the next morning, all nine were killed in a shootout between the terrorists and West German police at a military airport.

The tragedy stunned the world and stopped the XXth Olympiad in its tracks. But after suspending competition for 24 hours and holding a memorial service attended by 80,000 at the main stadium, 84-year-old outgoing IOC president Avery Brundage and his committee ordered “the Games must go on.”

They went on without 22-year-old swimmer Mark Spitz, who had set an Olympic gold medal record by winning four individual and three relay events, all in world record times. Spitz, an American Jew, was an inviting target for further terrorism and agreed with West German officials when they advised him to leave the country.

The pall that fell over Munich quieted an otherwise boisterous Games in which American swimmer Rick DeMont was stripped of a gold medal for taking asthma medication and track medalists Vince Matthews and Wayne Collett of the U.S. were banned for life for fooling around on the victory stand during the American national anthem.

The United States also lost an Olympic basketball game for the first time ever (they were 62-0) when the Soviets were given three chances to convert a last-second inbound pass and finally won, 51-50. The U.S. refused the silver medal.

Munich was also where 17-year-old Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut and 16-year-old swimmer Shane Gould of Australia won three gold medals each and Britain's 33-year-old Mary Peters won the pentathlon.

Olympics 1980

General Overview

Although approximately half of the 24 countries which boycotted the 1976 Summer Olympics participated in these, the Games were disrupted by another, even larger, boycott led by the United States followed by 64 other countries in protest of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Only 10 of these nations had won medals in Montreal. Because a number of countries were unlikely to have gone to Moscow anyway for financial reasons, they found it politically expedient to say they were boycotting the Games. It is difficult to compile an exact list of boycotting nations. Olympic historians put the number at 45–50.
Eighty-one nations participated — the lowest number since 1956. The nations that did compete won 71% of the medals, including 71% of the gold medals, at Montreal. In contrast the nations that competed in LA 1984 had won 49% of the medals, including 42% of the gold medals, at Montreal.
As a form of protest against the USSR intervention in Afghanistan, fifteen countries marched in the Opening Ceremony with the Olympic Flag instead of their national flags, and the Olympic Flag and Olympic Hymn were used at Medal Ceremonies when athletes from these countries won medals. One country — New Zealand — competed under their association flag (the New Zealand Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association).
The Italians won 4 times as many gold medals as they had in Montreal and the French multiplied their gold medal results by 3.Romania won more gold medals than it had at any previous Olympics.In total medals it was Ireland's most successful Olympics since Melbourne 1956. The same is true for Great Britain."Third World" athletes qualified for more events and took more medals than at any previous Olympics.
21% of the competitors were female — a higher percentage than at any previous Olympics.
There were 203 events — more than at any previous Olympics.
36 World records, 39 European records and 74 Olympic records were set.
In total this is more records than were set at Montreal.
Olympic records were improved on 241 times in the course of the competitions and world records were beaten 97 times.
Prince Alexandre de Merode of Belgium, Chairman of the IOC Medical Commission stated that "There were 9,292 drug tests. None positive".
As of 2007 4 Olympic records set in 1980 still stand — East German women 4×100 metre relay 41.6 seconds; Shot Put Ilona Slupianek of East Germany 22.41 metres; Soviet Nadezhda Olizarenko 800 metres, 1.53.43; Modern Pentathlon Soviet Anatoli Starostin 5568 points.
The impact of the boycott was mixed. Some events like field hockey and equestrian sports were hard hit. Others like boxing, judo, rowing, swimming, track and field and weightlifting actually had more participants than in 1976.
8 nations appeared for the first time at an Olympics — Angola, Vietnam, Botswana, Laos, Nicaragua, Seychelles, Mozambique and Cyprus. Zimbabwe also made its first appearance. It had previously competed as Rhodesia.
Athletes from 25 countries won Olympic gold (same as LA and 1 less than Montreal) and competitors from 36 countries became Olympic medallists.
The USSR won 16 gold medal titles in Montreal that they failed to retain in Moscow (Women's platform diving; Kayak fours, men 1000 metres; kayak doubles, women 500 metres; canoeing doubles, men 500 metres; canoeing doubles, men 1000 metres; fencing foil women's team; gymnastics men's floor exercise; men's handball team final; Rowing coxed fours men; weightlifting lightweight, middle heavyweight; judo, heavyweight; Graeco-Roman wrestling (lightweight, welterweight, light heavyweight, heavyweight).
Associated Press, on the basis of a comparative analysis of the best results of 1980 including national championships of the leading sports powers of the world, noted that even if American, Japanese, Canadian and West German competitors had taken part in the Games the USSR and East Germany would have headed the medal table as they had in Montreal.
Major broadcasters of the Games were USSR State TV and Radio (1,370 accreditation cards), Eurovision (31 countries, 818 cards) and Intervision (11 countries, 342 cards).[2] Asahi TV with 68 cards provided coverage for Japan, while OTI representing the Spanish-speaking world received 59 cards and the Channel Seven provided coverage for Australia (48 cards).[2] NBC, which had intended to be another major broadcaster, cancelled its coverage in response to the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics, and became a minor broadcaster with 56 accreditation cards,[2] the network did air highlights and recaps of the games on a regular basis. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation almost canceled their plans for coverage after Canada took part in the boycott and was represented by 9 cards.
The television centre used 20 TV channels. Montreal had used 16, Munich 12, Mexico 7.
During the opening ceremony, Salyut 6 crew Leonid Popov and Valery Ryumin sent their greetings to the Olympians and wished them happy starts in the live communication between the station and the Central Lenin Stadium. They appeared on the stadium's scoreboard and their voices were translated via loud speakers.
According to the Official Report, submitted to the IOC by the NOC of the USSR, total expenditures for the preparations for and staging of the Games were 862.7 million rubles, total revenues being 744.8 million rubles.
A series of commemorative coins was released in the USSR in 1977–1980 to commemorate the event. It consisted of five platinum coins, six gold coins, 28 silver coins and six copper-nickel coins.
Athletes reported that some Soviet fans at the track and field events were excessively jingoistic, even booing athletes of close USSR allies such as East Germany and Poland. In contrast the crowds at the women's gymnastic events were reported "to be better behaved than many we have seen in recent years".
There were 5 million spectators in the arenas — 1.5 million more than at Montreal.
There were 1,245 referees from 78 countries.
At the closing ceremony, the Los Angeles city flag — rather than the United States flag — was raised to symbolize the next host of the Olympic Games.

1980 Olympics, Moscow

Four years after 32 nations walked out of the Montreal Games, twice that many chose to stay away from Moscow–many in support of an American-led boycott to protest the December 1979, Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Unable to persuade the IOC to cancel or move the Summer Games, U.S. President Jimmy Carter pressured the USOC to officially withdraw in April. Many western governments, like West Germany and Japan, followed suit and withheld their athletes. But others, like Britain and France, while supporting the boycott, allowed their Olympic committees to participate if they wished.

The first Games to be held in a Communist country opened in July with 80 nations competing and were dominated by the USSR and East Germany. They were also plagued by charges of rigged judging and poor sportsmanship by Moscow fans who, without the Americans around, booed the Poles and East Germans unmercifully.

While Soviet gymnast Aleksandr Dityatin became the first athlete to win eight medals in one year, the belle of Montreal, Nadia Comaneci of Romania, returned to win two more gold medals and Cuban heavyweight Teofilo Stevenson became the first boxer to win three golds in the same weight division.

In track and field, Miruts Yifter of Ethiopia won at 5,000 and 10,000 meters, but the most thrilling moment of the Games came in the last lap of the 1,500 meters where Sebastian Coe of Great Britain outran countryman Steve Ovett and Jurgen Straub of East Germany for the gold.

Olympics 1988

Games of the XXIV Olympiad

Although the drug disqualification of sprinter Ben Johnson was the biggest story of the 1988 Olympics, the Seoul Games were highlighted by numerous exceptional performances. Christa Luding-Rothenburger, who was also a speed skater, earned a silver medal in cycling to become the only person in history to win Winter and Summer medals in the same year. Steffi Graf concluded her Grand Slam tennis season by winning Olympic gold. Greg Louganis repeated victories in both diving events. Florence Griffith-Joyner dominated the sprints. For the first time, all the medalists in dressage were women.

1988 Olympics, Seoul

For the first time since Munich in 1972, there was no organized boycott of the Summer Olympics. Cuba and Ethiopia stayed away in support of North Korea (the IOC turned down the North Koreans' demand to co-host the Games, so they refused to participate), but that was about it.

More countries (159) sent more athletes (9,465) to South Korea than to any previous Olympics. There were also more security personnel (100,000) than ever before given Seoul's proximity (30 miles) to the North and the possibility of student demonstrations for reunification.

Ten days into the Games, Canadian Ben Johnson beat defending champion Carl Lewis in the 100-meter dash with a world record time of 9.79. Two days later, however, Johnson was stripped of his gold medal and sent packing by the IOC when his post-race drug test indicated steroid use.

Lewis, who finished second in the 100, was named the winner. He also repeated in the long jump, but was second in the 200 and did not run the 4x100-relay. Teammate Florence Griffith Joyner claimed four medals–gold in the 100, 200 and 4x100-meter relay, and silver in the 4x400 relay. Her sister-in-law, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, won the long jump and heptathlon.

The most gold medals were won by swimmers–Kristin Otto of East Germany (6) and American Matt Biondi (5). Otherwise, Steffi Graf added an Olympic gold medal to her Grand Slam sweep in tennis, Greg Louganis won both men's diving events for the second straight time, and the U.S. men's basketball team had to settle for third place after losing to the gold medal-winning Soviets, 82-76, in the semifinals.

Olympics 1996

Highlights

Muhammad Ali lit the Olympic torch during the opening ceremonies of the games and received his gold medal from the 1960 Summer Olympics (he had thrown his previous one into a river in disgust).
Slovene gymnast Leon Štukelj arises at the opening ceremony as one of the oldest living sportsmen in the world (age 97)
Naim Süleymanoğlu becomes the first weightlifter to win three gold medals.
USA Dream Team III cruise to another gold medal win.
Michael Johnson wins gold in both the 200 m and 400 m, setting a new world record of 19.32 seconds in the 200 m.
Donovan Bailey of Canada wins the men's 100 m, setting a new world record of 9.84 seconds at that time.
Marie-José Perec equals Johnson's performance, although without a world record, by winning the rare 200 m/400 m double.
At the age of 35 Carl Lewis takes his 4th long jump gold medal, his 9th in all.
Softball, beach volleyball and mountainbiking debut on the Olympic program, together with women's soccer/football and lightweight rowing.
Palestine was allowed to compete in the Olympics for the first time.
Cycling professionals were admitted to the Olympics, with five-time Tour de France winner Miguel Indurain winning the inaugural individual time trial event.
Michelle Smith of Ireland wins three gold medals and a bronze in swimming, but her victories are overshadowed by doping allegations, which are later reinforced as she is banned after failing a test in 1998.
Amy Van Dyken wins four gold medals in the Olympic swimming pool, the first American woman to win four titles in a single Olympics.
A record 197 nations, all current IOC member nations, take part, with a record 79 of them winning at least one medal.
Five athletes were disqualified for using banned drugs. A few more were reinstated since the drug they took had been declared illegal only a week before the Olympics.
Kerri Strug becomes an American heroine after bringing victory to the American female gymnastics team in spite of having to perform with an injury in the final event. Her gymnastics team, popularly known as the "Magnificent Seven", also includes Shannon Miller, Amy Chow, Jaycie Phelps, Amanda Borden, Dominique Dawes and Dominique Moceanu.
Andre Agassi wins the gold medal in the tennis event. This helps him become the first male player to ever win the career Golden Slam. (completes his Career Grand Slam in 1999 when he wins the French Open singles title).
Kurt Angle of the United States won the gold medal in 100 kg (220 lb) freestyle wrestling while suffering a fractured neck. Angle would later go on to fame in Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Entertainment. He is widely regarded as one of the best athletes to ever participate in professional wrestling and the only Olympic gold medalist in the sport.
Deng Yaping of China wins two gold medals in Women singles and doubles of table tennis. She is also the winner of these two titles in 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
For the first time Olympic medals were won by the athletes from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Burundi, Ecuador, Georgia, Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Mozambique, Slovakia, Tonga, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.
Lee Lai Shan won a gold medal in sailing, the first and only gold medal that Hong Kong has ever won.
It was the first time that The United States 4X100 meters men relay was beaten in the finals . They were cleanly beaten by Canada . The team had won each final they were in at all the other games.
The US Women's Soccer team won the Gold Medal in the first ever Women's Soccer Event.

1996 Olympics, Atlanta

The Atlanta Games were certainly the largest (a record 197 nations competed), most logistically complicated Olympics to date and perhaps the most hyped and overcommercialized as well. Despite all the troubles that organizers faced, from computer scoring snafus and transportation problems to a horrific terrorist attack, these Olympics had some of the best stories ever.

The Games began so joyously with Muhammad Ali, the world's best-known sports figure now stricken by illness, igniting the Olympic cauldron. Sadly, just eight days later horror was the prevailing mood after a terrorist's bomb ripped apart a peaceful Friday evening in Centennial Olympic Park. In the explosion, one woman was killed, 111 people were injured and the entire world was reminded of the terror and tragedy of Munich in 1972.

As they did in '72, the Games would go on. In track and field, Michael Johnson delivered on his much-anticipated, yet still startling, double in the 200 and 400 meters. One thing that many didn't foresee is that he would be matched by France's Marie-Jose Perec, who converted her own 200-400 double, albeit with much less attention. Carl Lewis pulled out one last bit of magic to win the long jump for the ninth gold medal of his amazing Olympic career. Donovan Bailey set a world record in the 100 and led Canada to a win over a faltering U.S. team in the 4x100 relay.

The U.S. women's gymnastics squad took the team gold after Kerri Strug hobbled up and completed her final gutsy vault in the Games' most compelling moment. Swimmer Amy Van Dyken became the first American woman to win four golds in a single Games. Ireland's Michelle Smith won three golds (and a bronze) of her own, but her victories were somewhat tainted by controversy surrounding unproven charges of drug use.

The USA fared well in team sports also. The men's basketball “Dream Team” was back and, predictably, stomped the competition on its way back to the winners' podium. Also the U.S. women won gold at the Olympic debut of two sports–softball and soccer.

Olympics 2004

Games of the XXVIII Olympiad

In 2004 the Olympic Games returned to Greece, the home of both the ancient Olympics and the first modern Olympics. For the first time ever a record 201 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) participated in the Olympic Games. The overall tally for events on the programme was 301 (one more than in Sydney 2000). Popularity in the Games reached soared to new highs as 3.9 billion people had access to the television coverage compared to 3.6 billion for Sydney 2000. Women's wrestling was included in the program for the first time. Swimmer Michael Phelps won 6 gold medals and set a single-Games record with 8 total medals. Leontien Ziljaard-van Moorsel became the first female cyclist to earn 4 career gold medals and 6 total medals, while canoeist Birgit Fischer became the first athlete in any sport to win two medals in each of 5 Olympics. Runner Hicham El Guerrouj won both the 1,500m and the 5,000m, while on the women's side Kelly Holmes triumphed in both the 800m and the 1,500m. In team play, Argentina won the men's football tournament without giving up a goal, and the U.S. softball team won by outscoring their opponents 51-1.