1980 Summer Olympics - Overview

Overview

• Although approximately half of the 24 countries that boycotted the 1976 Summer Olympics (over the apartheid issue in South Africa) participated in these games, the 1980 Summer Olympics were disrupted by another, even larger, boycott led by the United States in protest of the 1979 Soviet war in Afghanistan. Many of the boycotting nations participated instead in the Liberty Bell Classic (also known as the "Olympic Boycott Games") in Philadelphia.
• Eighty nations participated – the smallest number since 1956. However, the nations that did compete had won 71% of the medals, including 71% of the gold medals, at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal.
• As a form of protest against the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, fifteen countries marched in the Opening Ceremony with the Olympic Flag instead of with their national flags, and the Olympic Flag and Olympic Hymn were used at Medal Ceremonies when athletes from these countries won medals. Competitors from three countries – New Zealand, Portugal and Spain – competed under the flag of their respective National Olympic Committees. Some of the teams who marched under other than their national flags were depleted by boycotts by individual athletes, and others did not march.
• Italy won four times as many gold medals as it did in Montreal and France multiplied its gold medal results by three. Romania won more gold medals than it had at any previous Olympics. In terms of total medals, this was Ireland's most successful Olympics since Melbourne 1956. The same was 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 was more records than were set at Montreal.
• New Olympic records were set 241 times over 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: "There were 9,292 drug tests. None positive".
• Three Olympic records set in 1980 still stood as of 2008 – East German women 4×100 metre relay 41.6 seconds (broken by Jamaica in 2012); 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.
• Eight nations appeared for the first time at an Olympics – Angola, Botswana, Laos, Nicaragua, Seychelles, Mozambique and Cyprus. Zimbabwe also made its first appearance under that name; it had previously competed as Rhodesia.
• Athletes from 25 countries won Olympic gold (the same total as in the 1984 Games and one fewer than in the 1976 Games) and competitors from 36 countries became Olympic medalists.

• 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). Asahi TV with 68 cards provided coverage for Japan, while OTI representing the Spanish-speaking world received 59 cards and the Seven Network provided coverage for Australia (48 cards). NBC, which had intended to be another major broadcaster, canceled its coverage in response to the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics, and became a minor broadcaster with 56 accreditation cards, although the network did air highlights and recaps of the games on a regular basis. (ABC aired scenes of the opening ceremony during its Nightline program, and promised highlights each night, but the next night, the show announced that they could not air any highlights as NBC still had exclusive broadcast rights in the USA.) The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation almost canceled their plans for coverage after Canada took part in the boycott and was represented by nine cards.
• The television centre used 20 television channels, compared to 16 for the Montreal Games, 12 for the Munich Games, and seven for the Mexico City Games.
• 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.
• The Games attracted five million spectators, an increase of 1.5 million from the Montreal Games.
• 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 symbolise the next host of the Olympic Games, and the Olympic flag was handed over to the IOC President rather than to the mayor of Los Angeles. This was the first time that the Olympic Flag Handover took place during the closing ceremony.