The 1980 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXII Olympiad and also known as Moscow 1980) were an international multi-sport event held between 19 July and 3 August 1980 in Moscow, Soviet Union, in present-day Russia.
The United States of America and a number of other countries boycotted the 1980 Games due to the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. This led to the USSR and its allies, in turn, boycotting the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
Bidding[]
As happened four years earlier, Moscow and Los Angeles were again facing each other to host the Olympic Games, representing the then polarization that the world faced in that period. This time, Moscow was more favored, given the incidents that happened in Munich 1972 and the proximity of Montreal 1976, configured as a gigantic failure, due to the delays of the works, the interference in its Organizing Committee and several problems that led to the inflation of expenses. Another factor that tremendously helped Moscow was the holding of the Template:W in which the city's Olympic project was tested in part, and also that Lake Placid was the only candidate for the Winter Games that year and it would become unfeasible for the IOC to hold its main event twice in the same country in the same year. The choice between them was made at the 75th IOC session in Vienna, Austria on 23 October 1974. Los Angeles would eventually host the 1984 Summer Olympics.[1][2]
Voting[]
| Voting results for the 1980 Summer Olympic Games | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| City | Country | Round 1 | ||||
| Moscow | Soviet Union | 39 | ||||
| Los Angeles | United States | 20 | ||||
Participation overview and boycott[]
Eighty nations were represented at the Moscow Olympics, the smallest number since Melbourne 1956. Among the eighty participating nations,[3] seven National Olympic Committees (NOCs) made their Olympic debut at these Games: Angola, Botswana, Cyprus, Jordan, Laos, Mozambique and the Seychelles.[4] None of these nations won a single medal.
Although approximately half of the 24 countries that boycotted the 1976 Summer Olympics (in protest against the IOC not expelling New Zealand who sanctioned a rugby tour of Template:W South Africa) participated in the Moscow Games, the 1980 Summer Olympics were disrupted by another, even larger, boycott led by the United States in protest of the 1979 Template:W. The Soviet invasion spurred President Template:W to issue an ultimatum on 20 January 1980, stating that the U.S. would boycott the Moscow Olympics if Soviet troops did not withdraw from Afghanistan within one month.[5] 65 countries and regions invited did not participate in the 1980 Olympics. Many of these followed the United States' boycott initiative, while others cited economic reasons for not participating.[5] Iran, under Template:W hostile to both superpowers, boycotted when the Template:W condemned the invasion. Neither the People's Republic of China nor Taiwan participated in the games.
Many of the boycotting nations participated instead in the Template:W, also known as the "Olympic Boycott Games", in Philadelphia. However, the competing nations won 71 percent of all medals, and similarly 71 percent of the gold medals, at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. This was in part due to state-run doping programs that had been developed in the Eastern Bloc countries.[6][7] 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 Template:W were used at medal ceremonies when athletes from these countries won medals. Athletes from New Zealand,[8] Portugal, and Spain competed under the flags of their respective National Olympic Committees. Some of these teams that marched under flags other than their national flags were depleted by boycotts by individual athletes, while others refused to participate in the march.
The boycott impacted the competition of swimming, track and field, boxing, basketball, diving, field hockey and equestrian sports. Whilst athletes from 36 countries became Olympic medalists, the majority of the medals were awarded to the Soviet Union and East Germany, the most skewed medal tally since 1904.
Sports[]
Medal table[]
| Rank | Country | 
|
|
|
Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Soviet Union | 80 | 69 | 46 | 195 |
| 2 | East Germany | 47 | 37 | 42 | 126 |
| 3 | Bulgaria | 8 | 16 | 17 | 41 |
| 4 | Cuba | 8 | 7 | 5 | 20 |
| 5 | Italy | 8 | 3 | 4 | 15 |
| 6 | Hungary | 7 | 10 | 15 | 32 |
| 7 | Romania | 6 | 6 | 13 | 25 |
| 8 | France | 6 | 5 | 3 | 14 |
| 9 | Great Britain | 5 | 7 | 9 | 21 |
| 10 | Poland | 3 | 14 | 15 | 32 |
| 11 | Sweden | 3 | 3 | 6 | 12 |
| 12 | Finland | 3 | 1 | 4 | 8 |
| 13 | Czechoslovakia | 2 | 3 | 9 | 14 |
| 14 | Yugoslavia | 2 | 3 | 4 | 9 |
| 15 | Australia | 2 | 2 | 5 | 9 |
| 16 | Denmark | 2 | 1 | 2 | 5 |
| 17 | Brazil | 2 | 0 | 2 | 4 |
| 17 | Ethiopia | 2 | 0 | 2 | 4 |
| 19 | Switzerland | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 20 | Spain | 1 | 3 | 2 | 6 |
| 21 | Austria | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 |
| 22 | Greece | 1 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
| 23 | Belgium | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 23 | India | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 23 | Zimbabwe | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 26 | North Korea | 0 | 3 | 2 | 5 |
| 27 | Mongolia | 0 | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| 28 | Tanzania | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 29 | Mexico | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4 |
| 30 | Netherlands | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 31 | Ireland | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 32 | Uganda | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 32 | Venezuela | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 34 | Jamaica | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| 35 | Guyana | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 35 | Lebanon | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ Miller, Geoffrey. "Lake Placid given unanimous approval", Schenectady Gazette, 24 October 1974, p. 33.
- ↑ "Face-saving mood give LA Games 'conditionally'", Eugene Register-Guard, 18 May 1978, p. 1C.
- ↑ Brian Murphy. Sting remains from boycotted 1980 Games. Idaho Statesman. Retrieved on 22 August 2010.
- ↑ 40 Years of Summer Olympic Cities. cnbc.com. Retrieved on 22 August 2010.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "The Olympic Boycott, 1980", state.gov, U.S. Department of State.
- ↑ The 1980 Olympics Are the 'Cleanest' in History. Athletes Recall How Moscow Cheated the System.
- ↑ "The Soviet Doping Plan: Document Reveals Illicit Approach to '84 Olympics", The New York Times, 13 August 2016.
- ↑ New Zealand Olympic Committee. Olympic.org.nz. Retrieved on 8 August 2010.
Links[]
| Preceded by Lake Placid 1980 |
Olympics 1980 |
Succeeded by Sarajevo 1984 |
| Preceded by Montreal 1976 |
Summer Olympics 1980 |
Succeeded by Los Angeles 1984 |