1972 Summer Olympics

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Games of the XX Olympiad
Games of the XX Olympiad
Host city Munich, Germany
Nations participating 121
Athletes participating 7170 (6075 men, 1059 women)
Events 195 in 23 sports
Opening ceremony August 26
Closing ceremony September 10
Officially opened by Gustav Heinemann
Athlete's Oath Heidi Schüller
Judge's Oath Heinz Pollay
Olympic Torch Günther Zahn
Stadium Olympic Stadium

The 1972 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad, were held in Munich, West Germany, from 26 August to 11 September 1972. Munich won its Olympic bid in July 1966 over the cities of Detroit, Madrid and Montreal.

The 1972 Summer Olympics were the second Summer Olympics held in Germany, after the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. The Munich Olympics were intended to present a new, democratic and optimistic Germany to the world, as shown by its official motto, "the Happy Games." The emblem of the Games was a blue solar logo (the "Bright Sun"). The Olympic mascot, the dachshund "Waldi", was the first officially named Olympic mascot. The games also saw the introduction of the now universal sports pictograms designed by Otl Aicher.

The Olympic Park (Olympiapark) is based on Frei Otto's plans and after the Games became a Munich landmark. The competition sites, designed by architect Günther Behnisch, included the Olympic swimming hall, the Olympics Hall (Olympiahalle, a multipurpose facility) and the Olympic Stadium (Olympiastadion), and an Olympic village very close to the park. The design of the stadium was considered revolutionary, with sweeping canopies of acrylic glass stabilized by metal ropes, used on such a large scale for the first time.

Contents

[edit] Munich Massacre

Main article: Munich massacre
The games were marred by the kidnapping and killing of 11 Israeli athletes.
The games were marred by the kidnapping and killing of 11 Israeli athletes.

The games were marred by what has come to be known as the Munich massacre. On 5 September a group of eight Palestinian terrorists belonging to the Black September organization took eleven Israeli athletes hostage in their hotel, soon killing two of them in the apartment; the subsequent standoff in the Olympic village lasted for almost 18 hours. During a badly botched German rescue attempt at the military airport of Fürstenfeldbruck, where the captors with their hostages had been transferred by helicopter ostensibly to board a plane bound for an undetermined Arabic country, all the surviving Israeli hostages were killed by the Palestinians. All but three of the Palestinianians were killed as well. The Olympic events were briefly suspended but Avery Brundage, the International Olympic Committee president, decided that "the Games must go on" and the games resumed a day later.

The events of the Munich massacre were chronicled in the Oscar-winning documentary, One Day in September. A fictional account of the aftermath was dramatized in Steven Spielberg's 2005 film Munich. The massacre led the German federal government to realize the inadequacy of its post-World War II pacifist approach to combatting terror, and to the creation of the elite counter-terrorist unit GSG 9. It also led Israel to launch an aggressive counterterrorism campaign known as Operation Wrath of God. The attack prompted heightened security at future Olympics beginning with the 1976 Winter Olympics.

[edit] 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 determined to add three seconds back to the clock due to error in re-starting the timer, even though Jones had no authority to intervene in an Olympic game. 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 for; Hungary, Poland, and Cuba voted against). The Soviet athletes were awarded gold medals. The U.S. team voted unanimously to refuse the silver medal and to this day 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.
  • 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.
Munich Olympics commemorative 10-mark coin, 1972
Munich Olympics commemorative 10-mark coin, 1972
Munich Olympics mascot, the dachshund Waldi
Munich Olympics mascot, the dachshund Waldi

[edit] Venues

  • Venues in Greater Munich
    • Regatta Course (Regattastrecke), Oberschleißheim - rowing
    • Basketball Hall (Basketballhalle), Siegenburger Straße - basketball, judo
    • Fairgrounds, Fencing Hall 1 (Messegelände, Fechthalle 1) - fencing
    • Fairgrounds, Fencing Hall 2 (Messegelände, Fechthalle 1) - fencing
    • Fairgrounds, Weightlifting Hall (Messegelände, Gewichtheberhalle) - weightlifting
    • Fairgrounds, Judo and Wrestling Hall (Messegelände, Judo- und Ringerhalle) - judo, wrestling
    • Dante Swimming Pool (Dantebad) - water polo
    • Shooting Facility (Schießanglange), Hochbrück - shooting
    • Archery Facility (Bogenschießanlange), Englischer Garten - archery
    • Riding Facility, Riem - equestrian events
    • Dressage Facility Nymphenburg - equestrian events
  • Other Venues
    • Olympic Yachting Center, Kiel-Schilksee - water skiing, yachting
    • Nürnberg - football/soccer preliminaries
    • Regensburg - football/soccer preliminaries
    • Passau - football/soccer preliminaries
    • Ingolstadt - football/soccer preliminaries
    • Augsburg - canoeing, football/soccer preliminaries, handball preliminaries
    • Ulm - handball preliminaries
    • Göppingen - handball preliminaries
    • Böblingen - handball preliminaries

[edit] Medals awarded

See the medal winners, ordered by sport:

[edit] Demonstration sports

[edit] Medal count

Main article: 1972 Summer Olympics medal count

These are the top ten nations that won medals at these Games.

 Rank  Nation Gold Silver Bronze Total
1 Soviet Union Soviet Union 50 27 22 99
2 United States United States 33 31 30 94
3 East Germany East Germany (GDR) 20 23 23 66
4 West Germany West Germany (FRG) (host nation) 13 11 16 40
5 Japan Japan 13 8 8 29
6 Australia Australia 8 7 2 17
7 Poland Poland 7 5 9 21
8 Hungary Hungary 6 13 16 35
9 Bulgaria Bulgaria 6 10 5 21
10 Italy Italy 5 3 10 18

[edit] Participating nations

Participants
Participants

Articles about Munich Summer Olympics by nation:

[edit] See also

[edit] Olympics with significant criminal incidents

[edit] External links

[edit] Bibliography

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