Moscow (1980)
The 1980 Summer Olympics was held in Moscow in the Soviet Union. In addition, the yachting events were held in Tallinn, and some of the preliminary matches and the quarter-finals of the soccer tournament were held in Leningrad, Kiev, and Minsk. The 1980 Games were the first to be staged in Eastern Europe.
Interesting Facts
- Although approximately half of the 24 countries which boycotted the 1976 Summer Olympics participated in these, the 1980 Games were disrupted by another, even larger, boycott led by the United States followed by 60 other countries in protest of the 1979 Soviet war in Afghanistan. Many of the boycotting nations participated instead in the Olympic Boycott Games or the “Liberty Bell Classic” in Philadelphia.
- Eighty-one nations participated — the lowest 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 their national flags, and the Olympic Flag and Olympic Hymn were used at Medal Ceremonies when athletes from these countries won medals. Competitors from one country — New Zealand — competed under their association flag, the flag of the New Zealand Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association. Some of the teams who marched under other than their national flags were depleted by boycotts by individual athletes, and others did not march.
- The Italians won four times as many gold medals as they had in Montreal and the French multiplied their 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 is 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”.
- 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 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 less than in the 1976 Games) and competitors from 36 countries became Olympic medalists.
- 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.
- 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, and the Olympic flag was handed over to the IOC President rather than the mayor of Los Angeles.