Olympic History: Triumph & Tragedy

1896: Athens

French baron Pierre de Coubertin’s dream of worldwide athletic competition came true April 6 as a crowd of 80,000 filled a newly built stadium for the opening ceremony of the first modern Olympic Games.

Thirteen nations sent 311 male athletes. The first Olympic medal was won by American James B. Connolly, a Harvard student, in the hop, step and jump (now the triple jump).

After sailing across the Atlantic, he was the victim of a pickpocket in Naples, Italy. He was delayed by authorities, unimpressed with his story about going to the Olympics. They hadn’t heard of them.

Connolly finally arrived in Athens, thinking it was late March. But the Greek Orthodox calendar, which ran 12 days ahead of the Western calendar, was in effect, and it was April 5, one day before he was scheduled to compete. He won anyway.

Gold was considered vulgar, so his winning medal was silver. Gold wasn’t used until 1904.

The signature event of the Games was the marathon. The host nation, which had not won a medal in track, was saved by a Greek shepherd named Spiridon Louis, who entered the stadium to a roar and won.

1900: Paris

De Coubertin had envisioned a gala Olympic setting for his hometown, complete with new stadiums and parks, and classic Greek architecture.

Officials turned down his request, however, the Olympics instead was combined with a World’s Fair and the results were devastating: inadequate venues, poor publicity, confusion over schedules and results, a mix of sports that included golf, rugby, cricket and croquet, but no boxing or wrestling, and the Games running from May through October.

Still, there were some genuine highlights. Britain’s Charlotte Cooper became the first female Olympic champion, winning the singles tennis tournament, and one of the most decorated American athletes in Olympic history, Ray Ewry, won the standing high jump, standing long jump and standing triple jump, all discontinued after the 1908 Games. In his career, Ewry won 10 Olympic titles.

The biggest star, however, was American Alvin Kranzlein, who won the 60 meters and the 110-meter and 200-meter hurdles.

1904: St. Louis

Once again, the Games were combined with a World’s Fair but much of the world was busy with other things. The Russo-Japanese War was heating up and the British navy was mobilized when the Suez Canal was threatened.

England sent only one competitor and only 13 nations competed. Of the 687 athletes, only 107 were foreigners, 52 of those from Canada.

Even so, there were noteworthy achievements. George Poage of Milwaukee became the first black to win an Olympic medal, finishing third in the 400-meter hurdles, but wasn’t even the fastest man from his hometown. Archie Hahn, “the Milwaukee Meteor,” won the 60 meters, 100 meters and 200 meters.

Ray Ewry again won the standing high jump, long jump and triple jump; Harry Hillman won the 400, plus the 400- and 200-meter low hurdles, and Meyer Prinstein won the long jump and triple jump.

Outstanding, though, was Thomas Kiely, 35, who gave Ireland its first Olympic medal in the 10-event forerunner to the decathlon. Included were the 100-yard sprint, shotput, high jump, 880-yard walk, hammer, pole vault, 120-yard hurdles, 56-pound weight throw, long jump and mile--all in one day.

1908: London

Rome had been designated the host city but backed out when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 1906, and Olympic funds were used to rebuild the Italian city.

But on short notice, London staged the first truly world-wide Games--more than 2,000 athletes from 22 nations participated--memorable primarily for the marathon.

On a hot, muggy day, South African Charles Heffernan and Italian Dorando Pietri were battling for the lead when, about two miles from the finish, Heffernan reportedly accepted champagne from a fan, got dizzy and faded. That left only American John Hayes to chase Pietri.

Pietri entered Shepherd’s Bush Stadium first but then the heat got to him. He began staggering the wrong way, was redirected by officials, then fell. Officials helped him up but he collapsed several more times before struggling across the finish line first, in the arms of an official.

The Italian flag was raised just as Hayes entered the stadium and finished. American officials promptly protested that Pietri had received illegal help. The protest was upheld and Hayes was awarded the gold medal.

1912: Stockholm

These were Jim Thorpe’s Olympics. After finishing fourth in the high jump and seventh in the long jump, a legend was born. In the pentathlon, he blew away the field by winning the long jump, discus, 200 meters and 1,500-meters and finishing third in the javelin. And in the three-day decathlon, Thorpe, of Irish, French and mainly American Indian descent, won the gold with 8,412 points, an astonishing 688 points better than silver medalist Hugo Wieslander of Sweden. It was his first try at the decathlon.

In 1913, it was learned that Thorpe had once been paid $25 a week as a minor league baseball player. By the rules of amateurism of the era, Thorpe was a professional and thus ineligible for Olympic competition. Not until 1982, 29 years after his death, was Thorpe pardoned and his medals returned to his surviving family.

In swimming, where women were allowed to participate for the first time, Duke Kahanamoku of Hawaii won the 100-meter freestyle, the first of five five Olympic medals in his career. He developed a kicking style known as the flutter kick, which was eventually adopted by most freestylers and revolutionized the sport.

1920: Antwerp

After cancellation of the 1916 games because of World War I, Antwerp, Belgium, was awarded the Games to honor a nation that had suffered great losses during the war. But the economically depressed country was unable to adequately prepare new venues for the competition. The running track was rutted; housing arrangements were unsatisfactory. Attendance was slight because fans didn’t have the money to spare. Nonetheless, competition was spirited.

The most heroic figure of the games was a French veteran named Joseph Guillemot, whose lungs had been badly damaged by poisonous mustard gas. Doctors prescribed a program of light jogging and distance running, new activities to him. Guillemot upset one of track’s giants, Paavo Nurmi, to win the gold in the 5,000.

The Olympic oath was introduced for the first time as was a new Olympic flag designed by Games’ founder Baron Pierre de Coubertin of France. The flag featured five interlocking rings of blue, yellow, black, green and red, symbolizing the friendship of all mankind and all nations. The rings remain the Olympic symbol today.

1924: Paris

A record 44 nations competed in 17 sports as the Olympics returned to Paris. Paavo Nurmi, 27, the Flying Finn, won five gold medals--cross-country team, 3,000-meter team, cross-country individual, 1,500 meters and 5,000 meters. Nurmi performed a feat never before even tried: Despite 100-degree heat, he ran the 1,500 and 5,000 with only an hour’s rest in between. No runner has won five gold medals at a single Olympics.

Harold Abrahams, a student at Cambridge, won the 100 meters, becoming the first European sprinter to win a gold medal. Another British runner, his close friend Eric Liddell, was the Commonwealth record holder in the event. Liddell, devoutly religious, switched his training to the 400 because the 100 was being run on a Sunday. He won the 400 gold in record time. The tale of their friendship became the Academy Award-winning 1981 movie, “Chariots of Fire.”

In swimming, Johnny Weissmuller won the 100- and 400-meter freestyle events and helped the U.S. win the gold in the 4x200 freestyle relay. He also played on the bronze-medal water polo team. After the 1928 Games, he became better known as Tarzan, king of the jungle.

1928: Amsterdam

Over the objection of Olympic founder Pierre de Coubertin and Pope Pius XI, women made their Olympic debut in track and field in five events--the 100, 800, 4x100 relay, discus and high jump.

Betty Robinson, a 16-year-old high school student from Illinois, defeated Canadian favorite Fanny Rosenfeld to win the gold medal in the 100, the first women’s event. She was seriously injured in an airplane accident in 1931, but by 1936 had recovered enough to earn a spot on the 4x100 relay team, which won a gold medal.

In swimming, Johnny Weissmuller concluded his magnificent career with two more gold medals in the 100 and 200 freestyle events.

An Olympic flame symbolizing peace was introduced for the first time. It burned for the entire Olympiad, and has done so at every Olympics since.

1932: Los Angeles

The world was in the midst of the Great Depression in 1932, but there was a great rejoicing in Los Angeles, site of the Summer Olympics.

Thanks to a Southern California real estate magnate, William May Garland, enough money was raised through business and government grants to attract 1,400 athletes from 37 nations. Garland built the first Olympic village in the hills south of Los Angeles, generating camaraderie among athletes.

An exceptionally fast track made of crushed peat resulted in seven world records for the men and another three among the women, one of whom was the star of the Games.

American typist Mildred “Babe” Didriksen won the 80-meter hurdles and javelin, and might have had a third gold medal in the high jump but for a quirky ruling. Her western-roll style was deemed illegal and she settled for a silver.

Didriksen went on to became one of the greatest female golfers of all time, winning the U.S. Open three times after World War II.

1936: Berlin

Jesse Owens. Adolf Hitler. It was the best and worst of times in Berlin for the 1936 Summer Olympics.

The Games had been awarded in 1931, before Hitler and his Nazi party had come to power. By ‘36, the anti-Semitic and racist policies of the Third Reich sparked protests and calls for a boycott but, in a close vote, the American team voted to attend.

Hitler made his 70,000-seat Reich Sports Field a stage for his propaganda. Black swastikas and iron crosses were everywhere, and he had written in one propaganda bulletin, “The Americans ought to be ashamed of themselves for letting their medals be won by Negroes. I myself would never shake hands with one of them.”

Fortunately, not all of the German athletes followed the Fuhrer’s lead. Owens, after fouling twice in the long jump preliminaries, was saved by German champion Luz Long, who suggested that Owens put towel a foot in front of the foul line and jump from there.

The advice worked. Owens qualified and then beat Long for the gold medal. And Long was the first to congratulate Owens.

Owens also won the 100- and 200-meter sprints and ran on the winning 400-meter relay. The four gold medals went unmatched in men’s track and field until American Carl Lewis duplicated the feat at Los Angeles in the 1984 Games.

1948: London

Resuming after 12 years because of World War II, the Games in London primarily featured athletes with no Olympic experience. Fanny Blankers-Koen of Holland was an exception, a promising 18-year-old at Berlin in 1936, as a 30-year-old she won four gold medals (80-meter hurdles, 100, 200 and 4x100 relay).

No woman has ever duplicated the feat.

Another athlete who missed his prime years during the war was Korean-American diver Sammy Lee. In 1948, at 28 won the platform diving gold medal. Lee later became a coach for perhaps the greatest diver in Olympic history, Greg Louganis.

Among the new athletes on the world stage in 1948 were Czechoslovakia’s Emil Zatopek, who won the first of his four Olympic golds in the 10,000 meters and and 17-year-old California high school student Bob Mathias, the youngest male Olympic champion in track and field, who won the first of his two decathlon golds.

1952: Helsinki

Helsinki was the little city that could in 1952. The capital of Finland, with a population of only 367,000, was the smallest city to hold the Summer Olympics but put on a spectacular show.

The Games marked the return of World War II aggressors Germany and Japan, and the first appearance by the Soviet Union.

But the biggest story of the Games was Czechoslovakia’s legendary distance runner, Emil Zatopek, a gold- and silver-medalist at London in 1948.

As expected, he won the 10,000- and 5,000-meter events. On the day he won the 5,000, Zatopek stepped off the medal stand and walked toward the javelin area, where his wife, Dana, was competing, and showed her his latest gold medal.

She asked to hold it for good luck, then, on her first throw, set an Olympic record. The distance held up for the rest of the competition and the Zatopeks became the only married couple to win Olympic gold medals on the same day in different events.

But Emil wasn’t through. He decided to enter the marathon, an event he had never run, politely asked Jim Peters of Great Britain, the favorite, if he could run with him, then outran Peters and everyone else for his third gold medal.

1956: Melbourne

Political enemies and athletic friends made the 1956 Games eventful. The Games opened only three weeks after the Soviet Union had invaded Hungary. At about the same time, England and France intervened in a Suez Canal dispute between Israel and Egypt. Eight nations withdrew from the Olympics but the Games closed with a stirring ceremony of all athletes entering the stadium together.

As usual, track and field produced a litany of records, mostly by the United States. American men won 15 gold medals in the 24 events, and Al Oerter won the first of his four golds in the discus. The star of the U.S. team was sprinter Bobby Joe Morrow, who won the 100 and 200, and ran on the winning 400 relay.

In basketball, the United States breezed to a gold medal behind University of San Francisco--and future Boston Celtic--teammates Bill Russell and K.C. Jones. The team won its eight games by an average of 54 points.

In boxing, Hungary’s Laszlo Papp won an unprecedented third straight gold medal, in the light-middleweight division. He had been torn between staying home to protest the Soviet action and competing, finally choosing to fight, a decision that endeared him to fans and competitors alike.

1960: Rome

A female sprinter who overcame childhood polio to win three gold medals, a marathoner who competed barefoot, and won, and a boxer whose mouth was as fast as his fists were the major stories of the 1960 Games in Rome, the first televised around the world.

The sprinter was Wilma Rudolph, 20, from Tennessee, who had walked with a brace on her left leg until she was 11. She won the 100 in 11.3, tying the world record; the 200 in 24 flat, after having set an Olympic record of 23.2 in the heats, and anchored the winning 400-meter relay team.

The marathoner, Abebe Bikila of Ethiopia, a 28-year-old corporal in Emperor Haille Selassie’s Palace Guard, was unheralded and inexperienced but he pulled away and won by 200 yards, becoming the first black African to win an Olympic event. He chose to run barefoot because his new running shoes pinched.

And then there was an 18-year-old boxer from Louisville named Cassius Marcellus Clay, later to become famous as Muhammad Ali. He won the light-heavyweight gold medal and the hearts of thousands with his poetry and ever-ready quotes.

1964: Tokyo

The U.S. returned to dominance in track after a disappointing effort at Rome in 1960. Bob Hayes tied the world record of 10.0 in the 100 meters and added a gold medal and contributed to another world record in the 4x100 relay. Peter Snell of New Zealand won a second consecutive gold in the 800 and won the 1,500, completing a double-gold performance last achieved in 1920.

One memorable longshot paid off when Billy Mills, a Sioux Indian from South Dakota, won the 10,000 meters. Mills’ Olympic record of 28:24.4 was 46 seconds faster than he had ever run.

Four women’s world records were set in track, one tied and every other race featured an Olympic mark. Nineteen-year-old American Wyomia Tyus tied Wilma Rudolph’s world record of 11.2 in the 100.

Olympic swimming records were broken or matched 52 times and world records set 14 times. Don Schollander of the U.S. became the first swimmer to win four gold medals at a single Olympiad. Australian maverick Dawn Fraser won the 100-meter butterfly for the third straight Olympics. She later stole a Japanese rug from the Emperor’s Palace and was given a 10-year suspension from the sport.

1968: Mexico City

The signature events in the 1968 Games at Mexico City were the black-power protests of U.S. sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos after the 200-meter final, and long jumper Bob Beamon’s incredible leap of 29 feet 2 1/2 inches, nearly two feet beyond the world record.

Smith and Carlos were members of the Olympic Project for Human Rights, which protested the treatment of American blacks. Smith blazed to a victory in world-record time of 19.83. Carlos, the previous world-record holder, finished third. On the medal stand, Smith and Carlos, bowed their heads, raised their right fists--each was wearing a black glove--and stood in black socks during the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

The IOC and USOC acted quickly, suspending them and expelling them from the athletes’ village.

In the long jump, Beamon used his sprinter’s speed to full advantage in the thin air, hit the takeoff board perfectly and sailed through the air so high and so far that the electronic measuring device in the sand pit could not record his jump. Officials used a tape measure to calculate his mark.

And American Dick Fosbury provided another revolution, of sorts. He won the gold medal in the high jump with his unorthodox “Fosbury flop.”

1972: Munich

On Sept. 5, a Palestinian terrorist group known as Black September broke into the Olympic village where Israeli athletes were staying and killed the wrestling coach and a weightlifter, and took nine others hostage. Athletic competition was suspended later that day. A botched rescue attempt that night resulted in the deaths of all nine hostages, five terrorists and a German policeman.

The drama played out on ABC television, where Jim McKay acted as a news anchorman for 16 straight hours.

IOC President Avery Brundage made the decision to continue the Games after calling for a one-day break.

Only hours before the terrorist attack, American swimmer Mark Spitz, a Jewish athlete, had won his seventh gold medal and set his seventh world record. His individual performance remains unmatched.

The men’s U.S. basketball team, after seven straight gold medals and 62 consecutive Olympic victories, lost to the Soviet Union amid tremendous controversy when the Soviet Union won the title game, 51-50, after three restarts gave them time to make a winning shot.

1976: Montreal

The 1976 Montreal Games left the city heavily in debt, thanks to poor planning, over-budgeting, labor problems, an unusually cold winter and a collapse of the economy in the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis.

And then there was politics. Many black African nations withdrew, protesting the inclusion of New Zealand, whose rugby team had toured apartheid South Africa, and Taiwan withdrew after a disagreement with Canada. In all, 24 nations boycotted.

Even so, the Games were memorable for gymnast Nadia Comaneci of Romania, 14, who recorded the first perfect 10 in Olympic history, on the uneven bars. Overall, she earned seven perfect scores on the way two gold medals, a silver and a bronze.

Alberto Juantorena of Cuba became the first track athlete to win the 400 and 800 at the same Olympics, and Lasse Viren of Finland duplicated his feat of 1972 by winning the 5,000 and 10,000.

Other stars were Edwin Moses, who set a world record in the 400-meter hurdles, and Bruce Jenner, who did the same in the decathlon; boxer Sugar Ray Leonard, who won the light-welterweight gold medal, and swimmer John Naber, who won four gold medals and a silver.

1980: Moscow

Moscow was the host city for the 1980 Summer Games, the first in a country with a Communist regime. But the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December, 1979, again bringing politics to the Olympics. President Jimmy Carter threatened a boycott if the USSR did not withdraw its troops. Soviet aggression continued and the U.S., along with more than 60 other nations, boycotted.

The Games went on but with a reduced field of 80 nations and about 5,200 athletes and weakened competition. Even so, 36 world records were set and 73 Olympic marks fell.

Perhaps the most anticipated duel was on the track, between British middle-distance marvels Steve Ovett and Sebastian Coe. At Moscow, where raced each other for the first time in two years, Coe was the favorite in the 800 and Ovett in the 1,500. But Ovett surprised by winning the 800 and Coe returned the favor by taking the 1,500.

In gymnastics, Nadia Comaneci of Romania again dominated, winning two golds and two silvers. In swimming, with Vladimir Salnikov winning three golds, the Soviets won most of the men’s medals, and East Germany won 10 of the 12 women’s events, led by Barbara Krause and Rica Reinisch with three golds each. And in boxing, Cuba’s Teofilo Stevenson won his third straight heavyweight gold.

1984: Los Angeles

Stung by the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Games in Moscow, the USSR and most Soviet bloc nations including Cuba did not come to L.A.

With a weakened talent pool, Americans won a record 83 gold medals (plus 61 silver and 30 bronze). Corporate sponsorship and a record $225-million ABC television contract for U.S. rights fees reaped huge profits. The best and brightest star was Carl Lewis. Forty-eight years after Jesse Owens had won four gold medals, in the 100, 200, 4x100 relay and long jump, Lewis matched the feat exactly.

One of the most memorable scenes came in the women’s 3,000 meters, when Mary Decker fell after tangling with Zola Budd, an incident that has earmarked the careers of both runners since.

Gymnast Mary Lou Retton became a crowd favorite as she grabbed silvers in the vault and team event, and bronze in the floor exercise and uneven bars. She then became the first American to win the women’s all-around individual title.

U.S. swimmers won 20 of 29 gold medals; the men’s basketball team, featuring Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing and Chris Mullin, won gold and the women’s team won its first gold medal.

1988: Seoul

With no boycott, the Olympics were back at full strength--and more. Steroids took center stage.

Canadian Ben Johnson outran Carl Lewis in the 100 meters in astonishing record time of 9.79 seconds. Later that night, drug-testing results confirmed rumors that had followed Johnson for years: He tested positive for a performance-enhancing anabolic steroid. He was stripped of his medal and sent home. Lewis, second at 9.92, was declared the gold medalist. Sprinter Florence Griffith-Joyner set world records of 10.54 in the 100 and 21.34 in the 200 and captivated crowds with her style. Flo-Jo’s sister-in-law, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, became the first Olympian to win a multi-event and single-event gold since Harold Osborne won the decathlon and high jump in 1924. She won the heptathlon with a world-record 7,291 points and also set an Olympic record in the long jump.

Greg Louganis became the first male to win the springboard and platform titles in consecutive Olympics, and East German Kristin Otto won six gold medals, the most ever by a female swimmer.

Matt Biondi won five swimming gold medals, setting four world records, and added a silver and bronze. Janet Evans led the U.S. women with three gold medals.

1992: Barcelona

They were the most hyped, most talented and athletic contingent ever to appear on the Olympic stage. But America’s Dream Team-NBA players making their debut in the Games-was not the only newly formed collection of athletes. The Olympics underwent a dramatic makeover in 1992. The Soviet Union had disbanded, creating a mixed bag of individual nations. For the first time since 1936, Estonia and Latvia were represented as independent nations. The rest of the former U.S.S.R. competed for the first time since 1964. And in the Balkans, where bitter fighting continued, Yugoslavia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia an Croatia each sent a team.

In track, Americans set three world records: men’s 400-meter hurdles (Kevin Young, 46.78); men’s 4x100 relay and men’s 4x400 relay.

In gymnastics, Vitali Scherbo of the Unified Team, the son of circus acrobats, won six gold medals, a record for his sport. American Trent Dimas’ gold on the horizontal bar was the first individual gold medal for an American gymnast on foreign soil.

In swimming, there 10 world records and the U.S. won 27 medals, led by Summer Sanders, who won two golds, a silver and a bronze; her 11 medals tying Mark Spitz for the most among swimmers.