Unforgettable Olympic Moments Since French baron
Pierre de Coubertin gave fresh life to the Olympic movement in 1896, the Games
have been witness to some of the most unforgettable moments in sports. Some of
those moments have been dazzling athletic achievements. Others have been moments
that organizers would have preferred never happened. But good or had, these
events have helped create the memories that shape our perceptions of the Olympic
Games to the present day. So here, in no particular order, are seven
unforgettable moments from the Summer Olympic Games. Jesse
Owens--Berlin 1936 In 1936, Nazi Germany played host to the
Summer Olympics, and Germany’s Adolf Hitler was determined to prove the
superiority of the Aryan race. African-American track star Jesse Owens, a son of
a sharecropper and the grandson of slaves, had other plans. In a display
that dealt a tremendous blow to the Nazi’s racist ideology, Owens won the
100-meter dash, the 200-meter dash and the long jump. He was also a key member
of the 400-meter relay team that won the gold medal. He set
records in three of those events. He was the first American to ever win four
medals in an Olympic Games. But as Owens himself later noted,
his single-handed destruction of Hitler’s myth of Aryan superiority did little
at the time to advance the cause of African-Americans in the US.
"When I came hack to my native country, after all the stories about
Hitler, I couldn’t ride in the front of the bus," Owens said. "I had to go to
the back door. I couldn’t live where 1 wanted. I wasn’t invited to shake hands
with Hitler, but I wasn’t invited to the White House to shake hands with the
president, either. ’ The Soviet Union-USA Gold Medal Basketball Final-Munich 1972 It was as had a call by officials as
has ever been made in a sporting contest. The 1972 gold medal basketball game
between the United States and the Soviet Union was a real squeaker, but it
looked as if the Americans had pulled it out. But that was not to be, as
long-time Monitor sports writer and now sports blogger (博客) Ross Atkins recalled
recently: After the US appeared to have kept its perfect Olympic
record intact and escaped a huge upset by the Soviets in the men’s final, the
referees twice decided to put three seconds back on the clock. The Soviets
managed to score the winning basket on the second replay and win the gold medal.
Distraught by what they considered an injustice, the members of US team voted
unanimously to refuse their silver medals. They’ve never reneged, and to this
day the medals sit in a Swiss vault. How seriously do the American players
who played on that team take this boycott Team captain Kenny Davis actually
placed in his will a request that his wife and children can never, ever receive
the silver medal from that game. Ethiopian Abebe Bikila Wins
a Gold Medal While Running Barefoot--Rome 1960 Abebe Bikila
was a young member of the Imperial Bodyguard of Ethiopia when he ran the
marathon in the 1960 Games in Rome. Up until that time, no black African had
ever won a gold medal in the Olympic Games, let alone a prestigious track and
field event like the marathon. But Bikila, running without his shoes in the
chilly dawn of a Roman summer day, broke that dry spell, and set a new world
record at the same time. It was fitting that his win came in
Italy, the nation that had invaded his homeland three decades earlier. His feat
captured the imagination of the entire world. Four years later in Tokyo,
he repeated it, becoming the first man to ever win gold ’in two Olympic.
marathons (a feat only duplicated once) . He also established a trend that
has to this day dominated long-distance events around the globe: the superiority
of runners from eastern Africa. Mark Spitz’ Seven Gold
Medals-Munich 1972 Before anyone had ever heard of this
year’s hyped Olympic swimming hopeful, Michael Phelps, there was an even greater
sensation in the pool: Mark Spitz. Spitz promised he would win seven gold medals
at the 72 games in Munich, Germany. Not only was he as good as
his word, winning four individual and three relay gold medals, but he also set,
or helped set, a world record in each race. No athlete in any discipline has
come close to matching his performance. In 1990, 18 years after his Olympic
medal spree, Spitz announced he planned m try to qualify for the 1992 Barcelona
Games in the 100-meter butterfly. But he did so poorly that he announced that,
once and for all, his swimming days were over. Ben Johnson
Loses Gold Medal in Doping Scandal--Seoul 1988 It was
arguably Canada’s greatest athletic achievement when Ben Johnson raced across
the finish line first in the 100-meter clash at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, making
him the "fastest human being ever". Within two days that joy turned into
one of the Olympics’ most disappointing moments, when Olympic officials
announced that Johnson had been disqualified because he had tested positive for
steroid use. After Johnson, Olympic organizers could no longer avoid the fact
that many top athletes were using drugs to help them win. The cat and-mouse game
between athletes and Olympic officials over the use of performance-enhancing
drugs continues to this day. But at the 2004 Games in Athens, there will be a
new wrinkle--along with urine, the blood of gold medal wining athletes will also
be tested, which is "considered a huge threat to cheaters". Bob Beamon Jumps 29 Feet--Mexico City 1968 For many
Olympic enthusiasts, it is the single greatest athletic achievement in Olympic
history. In 1968, US long jumper Bob Beamon won the gold medal at the Games in
Mexico City in a jump that didn’t just break the old world record, but
completely destroyed it. His wining jump, (29-ft, 21/2 inch.) ,
shattered the old mark by nearly a feet. Baamon’s record was finally broken by 2
inches in 1991 by US athlete Mike Powell. One little known fact is that a few
months before the Mexico City Games, he had been suspended from the University
of Texa-E1 Paso track team for refusing to compete against Brigham Young
University, a Mormon college, which at that time had what Beamon considered
racist policies. This meant he had to train for the games without a coach, so
former Olympian Ralph Boston Coached him unofficially. Nadia
Comaneci’s Perfect Scores--Montreal 1976 She was the first
perfect ten. Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci simultaneously amazed and stunned
the sporting world during the 1976 Games in Montreal when she scored the first
perfect marks in Olympic gymnastics--in fact, she was awarded seven perfect
marks during the competition. The diminutive star went home with gold medals in
the all-round competition, the balance beam and the uneven bars. She won two
more gold medals in the 1980 Moscow Games.. But once she
returned to Romania, Comaneci’s life became almost unbearable as she suffered
under the regime of Nicolae Ceausescu. She fled the country secretly in 1989
(literally in the middle of the night) and now lives in the US with her husband,
former US Olympic gymnast Bart Conners, whom she married in 1996. Pierre de Coubertin introduced the Olympic Games to a new era in 1896.