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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 bad, 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 back 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 I 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 bad 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 to 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 dash 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 9.004 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. Beamon’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 Texas--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.
"Dry spell" refers to the fact that before Abebe Bikila, no African had ever won an Olympics medal.