Which city hosted the 1980 Summer Olympics, which were boycotted by over 60 nations?
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1980 Summer Olympics 1980 Summer Olympics boycott
The 1980 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXII Olympiad (), was an international multi-sport event held in Moscow, Soviet Union, in present-day Russia.

The 1980 Games were the first Olympic Games to be staged in Eastern Europe, and remain the only Summer Olympics held there. They were also the first Olympic Games to be held in a communist country, and the only Summer Games to be held in such a country until the 2008 edition in Beijing, China. These were the final Olympic Games under the IOC Presidency of Michael Morris, 3rd Baron Killanin.

Led by the United States at the insistence of U.S. President Jimmy Carter, 65 countries boycotted the games because of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, though some athletes from some of the boycotting countries participated in the games under the Olympic Flag. This prompted the Soviet-led boycott of the 1984 Summer Olympics.

Host city selection

The only two cities to bid for the 1980 Summer Olympics were Moscow and Los Angeles. The choice between them was made on 23 October 1974 in the 75th IOC Session in Vienna, Austria. 

Participation overview and boycott

Eighty nations were represented at the Moscow Games – the smallest number since 1956. Six nations made their first Olympic appearance in 1980: Angola, Botswana, Jordan, Laos, Mozambique, and Seychelles. Cyprus made its debut at the Summer Olympics, but had appeared earlier at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. Sri Lanka competed for the first time under its new name (previously as Ceylon), Benin had competed previously as Dahomey and Zimbabwe competed for the first time under that name (previously as Rhodesia).

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 apartheid 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 at the 1979 Soviet war in Afghanistan. The Soviet invasion spurred Jimmy Carter to issue an ultimatum on January 20, 1980 that the US would boycott the Moscow Olympics if Soviet troops did not withdraw from Afghanistan within one month.  65 countries and regions invited did not take part in the 1980 Olympics. Many of these followed the United States' boycott initiative, while others cited economic reasons for not coming. Iran, under Ayatollah Khomeini hostile to both superpowers, boycotted when the Islamic Conference condemned the invasion. 

Many of the boycotting nations participated instead in the Liberty Bell Classic (also known as the "Olympic Boycott Games") in Philadelphia. However, the nations that did compete had won 71 percent of all medals, and similarly 71 percent 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 three countries – New Zealand,  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 some athletes did not participate in the march.

The impact of the boycott was mixed. Some events, such as field hockey and equestrian sports, were hard hit. Others such as boxing, judo, rowing, swimming, track and field and weightlifting had more participants than in 1976. Athletes from 25 countries won Olympic gold (the same total as in the 1984 Games and one fewer than in the 1976 Games) and competitors from 36 countries became Olympic medalists.  Italy won four times more gold medals than they won in Montreal and France multiplied its gold medal talley by three. Romania won more gold medals than it had at any previous Olympics. In terms of total medals, the Moscow Olympics was Ireland's most successful games since Melbourne 1956 (winning 2 medals). The same was true for Great Britain. "Third World" athletes qualified for more events and took more medals than they did at any previous Olympics. 21 percent of the competitors were women – a higher percentage than at any previous Olympics.

Events, records and drug tests overview

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 was 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. Three Olympic records set in 1980 still stood  – East German women 4 × 100 meter relay 41.6 seconds (broken by Jamaica in 2012); Soviet Nadezhda Olizarenko 800 meters, 1:53.43; Modern Pentathlon Soviet Anatoli Starostin 5568 points.

Prince Alexandre de Merode of Belgium, Chairman of the IOC Medical Commission, stated: "There were 9,292 drug tests. None positive".

Media and broadcasting

Major broadcasters of the Games were USSR State TV and Radio (1,370 accreditation cards), Eurovision (31 countries, 818 cards) and Intervision (11 countries, 342 cards).  TV Asahi with 68 cards provided coverage for Japan, while OTI representing the Latin America  received 59 cards and the Seven Network provided coverage for Australia (48 cards). NBC, which had intended to be another major broadcaster, canceled its coverage in response to the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics, and became a minor broadcaster with 56 accreditation cards, although the network did air highlights and recaps of the games on a regular basis. (ABC aired scenes of the opening ceremony during its Nightline program, and promised highlights each night, but the next night, the show announced that they could not air any highlights as NBC still had exclusive broadcast rights in the USA.) The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation almost canceled their plans for coverage after Canada took part in the boycott and was represented by nine cards. The television center used 20 television channels, compared to 16 for the Montreal Games, 12 for the Munich Games, and seven for the Mexico City Games.

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. 

Spectators and commemoration

The Games attracted five million spectators, an increase of 1.5 million from the Montreal Games. There were 1,245 referees from 78 countries. A series of commemorative coins was released in the USSR in 1977–1980 to commemorate the event. It consisted of five platinum coins, six gold coins, 28 silver coins and six copper-nickel coins.

Budget

According to the Official Report, submitted to the IOC by the NOC of the USSR, total expenditures for the preparations for and staging of the Games were 862.7 million rubles, total revenues being 744.8 million rubles.

Olympic games handover

At the closing ceremony, the flag of the city of Los Angeles rather than the United States flag, was raised to symbolise the next host of the Olympic Games. This followed the raising of the Greek flag to symbolize the past and that of the Soviet Union to represent the present. It was the first time that a future host city had refused to allow their national flag to be used. The ceremonial Olympic flag had been handed over to Moscow at the opening ceremony and was kept by the city authorities until 1984.

Opening ceremony

Highlights of the different events

Archery

* Tomi Poikolainen of Finland, who had not finished any of the previous three days' shooting higher than fourth, came from fourth on the last day to win the men's archery competition, scoring 2455 points. He won gold just three points ahead of a Soviet.
* The women's archery gold was won by Ketevan Losaberidze (USSR) who was also the world, European and Soviet champion.
* The women's archery silver was won by Natalia Butuzova (USSR). In 1979 she had set nine national records and three world records.
* The U.S. archery team was one of the strongest ever fielded but due to the boycott the team never had a chance to prove itself. This team held every record and featured 1976 Olympic Champion Darrell O. Pace, who was averaging 100 points more than the winning score in Moscow at the time.

Athletics

* Ethiopian Miruts Yifter won the 5,000 metres and 10,000 metres athletics double, emulating Lasse Virén's 1972 and 1976 performances.
* "I have a 90% chance of winning the 1,500 metres" wrote Steve Ovett in an article he did for one of Britain's Sunday papers just before the start of the Olympics. After he won the 800 metres Olympic gold, beating world-record holder Sebastian Coe, Ovett stated that he would not only win the 1,500 metres race, but would beat the world record by as much as four seconds. Ovett had won 45 straight 1,500 metres races since May 1977. In contrast Coe had competed in only eight 1,500 metres races between 1976–1980. Coe won the race, holding off Ovett in the final lap. Ovett finished third.
* Aided by the absence of American opposition, Allan Wells beat Cuban Silvio Leonard to become the first Briton since 1924 to win the Olympic 100 metres race. It was the closest 100 m race at the Olympics in 28 years, ending with a photo finish in which both runners timed at 10.25 seconds.
* Gerd Wessig – who had made the East German team only 2 weeks before the Games – easily won the gold medal with a  high jump. This was 9 cm higher than he had ever jumped before.
* The 1980 Olympic women's long jump competition produced a surprise when the third string Soviet jumper, Tatiana Kolpakova, bested her compatriots and other competitors by setting a new Olympic record of .
* Poland's Władysław Kozakiewicz won the pole vault with a jump of  – only the second pole vaulting world record to be established during an Olympics. The previous time had been at the Antwerp Olympics 1920.
* In the pole vault competition, despite pleas for silence in three languages, jeers, chants and whistles among the different factions in the crowd supporting French, Soviet and Polish pole vaulters could be heard. Immediately after Kozakiewicz secured his gold medal, he responded to the jeering Soviet crowds with an obscene bent elbow gesture. This gesture is now referred to in Polish as "Kozakiewicz's gesture".
* In the pole vault an athlete topped the Olympic record by 15 cm, yet finished fourth. Similarly, athletes who broke the Olympic record in men's high jump by 5 cm, the women's long jump by 13 cm, and the women's javelin by 60 cm, wound up no better than fourth. A total of twelve track and field athletes performed so well that their scores would have won any previous Olympics, yet failed to win a medal at Moscow.
* In the long jump competition, three women beat 23 ft for the first time ever in one competition.
* Waldemar Cierpinski of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) won his second consecutive marathon gold.
* Bärbel Wöckel, also of the GDR, winner of the 200 metres in Montreal, became the first woman to retain the title.
* Tatiana Kazankina (USSR) retained the 1,500m title that she had won in Montreal.
* In the women's pentathlon the Soviet Nadezhda Tkachenko scored 5,083 points to become the first athlete to exceed 5,000 points in the event during Olympic competition.
* Although she won the silver medal in the pentathlon, Olga Rukavishnikova (USSR) held the world record for 0.4 seconds as she finished first in the last event of 800m. That gave her the shortest reign of any world record holder ever.
* Soviet walker Anatoly Solomin was leading the 20 km walk with one lap to go when he was disqualified. The race was won by a hitherto little known Italian, Maurizio Damilano, in an Olympic record time.
* For the first time in the history of the Olympics all eight male participants in the long jump final beat the mark of 8 m.
* Spain and Bulgaria earned their first ever medals in men's track.
* Lutz Dombrowski (GDR) won the long jump gold. His was the longest jump recorded at sea level and he became only the second human to jump further than 28 ft.
* In the triple jump final Viktor Saneyev who won gold at Mexico, Munich and Montreal won silver behind his compatriot Jaak Uudmäe.
* Yuriy Sedykh (USSR) won gold in the hammer throw event. 4 of his 6 throws broke the world record of 80m. No hammer thrower in the world had ever achieved this before. As in Montreal the USSR won gold, silver and bronze in this event.
* Evelin Jahl (GDR) the 1976 Olympic champion won discus gold again. She won with a new Olympic record – . She had been undefeated since Montreal.
* Cuba's María Caridad Colón won the women's javelin setting a new Olympic record and beating the favoured Soviet throwers.
* Sara Simeoni of Italy won the women's high jump, setting a new Olympic record. She had won a silver in the 1976 Games and would go on to win a silver in the 1984 Games.
* In track-and-field six world records, eighteen Olympic records and nine best results of the year were registered.
* In women's track and field events alone either a world or Olympic record was broken in almost every event.
* Daley Thompson of Great Britain won the gold in the Decathlon. He won gold again at the Los Angeles Olympics.
* Soviet Dainis Kula won gold in the men's javelin. He also had the best sum total of throws, showing his consistency. He finished ahead of his teammate Alexander Makarov.
* IAAF President Adrian Paulen of the Netherlands said "Whereas at the 1976 Games in Montreal the Jury of Appeal had to deal with sixteen protests, the fact remains that in Moscow there were only two. This was the smallest number of protests at any Olympic Games since Tokyo 1964".

Basketball

* Basketball was one of the hardest hit sports due to the boycott. Though replacements were found, five men's teams including the defending Olympic Champion United States withdrew from the competition in addition to the US Women's team.
* In the Women's competition, the host Soviet Union won the competition beating Bulgaria for Gold, Yugoslavia won Bronze.
* The Men's competition featured only the second instance of the US Men's Basketball team failing to win Gold with the first one being in Munich.  Yugoslavia took home the gold beating Italy in the final. The hosts,  Soviet Union, winners in 1972, won the bronze.

Boxing

* Teófilo Stevenson of Cuba became the first boxer to win three consecutive Olympic titles in heavyweight, and indeed the only boxer to win the same event in three Games. (László Papp from Hungary was the first boxer to win three titles). In boxing Cuba won six gold, two silvers and two bronzes, a haul only equaled once before in the entire history of the Olympics (by the USA at St. Louis in 1904 when there were hardly any other boxers from other nations present). The USSR won one gold medal, the same as Italy, Yugoslavia, East Germany and Bulgaria.
* The Val Barker Trophy is presented by the International Amateur Boxing Association (IABA) to the competitor adjudged to be the best stylist at the Games. The winner was Patrizio Oliva of Italy who won gold at light-welterweight. In his final Oliva defeated Serik Konakbaev (USSR). In 1979 Konakbaev had beaten Oliva in the final of the European Championships.
* Donald F. Hull, U.S. president of the Amateur International Boxing Federation (IABA) said "I consider the organization of the present boxing tournament to be the best among the last three Olympics".

Canoeing

* The prophets of the canoeing world had predicted that the USSR would triumph in at least nine of the eleven classes for which there were gold medals to be won at the 1980 Olympic regatta. At Montreal the USSR had won six of eleven titles and at Munich six out of seven.
* Uladzimir Parfianovich of the USSR won three gold medals in canoeing.
* Sergei Postrekhin (USSR) was favored to win the single canoe 1,000 metres gold but is beaten by Lubomir Lubenov of Bulgaria.
* In canoeing Australia won its first medal since 1956.
* Ivan Patzaichin (Romania) won gold medals over a 16-year period,1968–1984.
* Apart from the boycotted Los Angeles Olympics Birgit Fischer of East Germany won medals in each Olympics from 1980–2004. In the 500 metres kayak singles for women she won gold in Moscow, silver in Seoul, gold in Barcelona.

Cycling

* Lothar Thoms of East Germany won the 1,000-metre individual pursuit cycling gold, breaking the world record by nearly four seconds.
* The surprise winner of the bronze in that race was Jamaica's David Weller who also broke the sixteen-year-old world record.
* In the 4,000-metre team pursuit qualifying heats new world indoor records were set eight times.
* In the 4,000-metre individual pursuit the Olympic flag was flown for all three medal winning positions – Switzerland gold, France silver, Denmark bronze. Robert Dill-Bundi became the first Olympic champion in the history of Swiss cycling.
* The 189-kilometer individual road race gold was won by Sergei Sukhoruchenkov (USSR). British team manager Peter Crinnon called it "The greatest exhibition of power riding ever". Sukhoruchenkov is voted best racer in the world by the International Amateur Cycling Federation.
* In this race only a photo-finish can tell the next two finishers apart, giving the silver medal to the Polish cyclist and the bronze to a Soviet cyclist.
* The cycling team road race is won by the Soviet team as they had done in Munich and Montreal.
* In cycling world records were toppled 21 times.

Diving

* As Aleksandr Portnov waited to do a 2 and ½ reverse somersault in the springboard final, cheers broke out in three adjoining swimming pool during the closing stages of Salnikov's world record breaking 1,500m swim. The diver delayed his start until the noise had subsided but, as he took his first steps along the board, even greater cheers broke out as Salnikov touched in under 15 minutes. Under the rules Portnov, having started, could not stop before take-off. He crashed badly. On protest to the Swedish referee G.Olander he was allowed to repeat the dive and went ahead again of Mexico's Carlos Girón. Later protests by Mexico against the re-dive and by East Germany that their Falk Hoffmann wanted to re-dive after allegedly being disturbed by photographic flashlights were both turned down by the International Amateur Swimming Federation (FINA). FINA President Javier Ostas of Mexico stated that the decision taken by the Swedish referee was the "correct one. FINA assessed all the Olympic diving events and considers the judging to have been objective". Portnov remained the winner with Giron taking silver and Cagnotto of Italy bronze.
* Martina Jaschke (East Germany) was fourth after the preliminary high dives, behind two Soviets and a Mexican, but came back to win gold on the second day of competition.
* Irina Kalinina (USSR) won gold in the springboard final. As a result of her ten dives in the preliminaries she amassed a unique number of points: 478.86. In the previous four years no diver had scored so many.
* In this final the Mexican judge A. Marsikal allowed Karin Guthke (East Germany) to re-take a dive. Guthke then won bronze ahead of the Soviet Zhanna Tsirulnikova.

Equestrian

* In the individual show jumping event Poland's Jan Kowalczyk and the USSR's Nikolai Koralkov each had 8 faults, but Kowalczyk won gold as his horse completed the course the quicker. So Poland won the last of the 203 gold medals contested.
* Austrian horsewoman Elisabeth Theurer, despite the decision of the federation of equestrian sports of her country not to participate in the Olympics, was flown to Moscow by former racing driver Niki Lauda. Theurer won the gold medal in the dressage competition.
* The oldest medalist at the Moscow Olympics was Petre Rosca (Romania) in the dressage at 57 years 283 days.

Fencing

* Soviet foil fencers, who had taken possession of all the World and Olympic titles, were not among the six challengers in the finals. The Soviet five-time world champion Alexander Romankov won a bronze.
* France took four gold medals in fencing, an Olympic record in the post World War II era.
* In the team sabre fencing final, for the fifth Olympics in a row, Italy and the USSR met. The USSR won as they did in Tokyo, Mexico and Montreal.
* In the men's foil final the USSR and France record eight wins each but the Frenchmen made more hits and this won them the gold.

Football

* The USSR were favorites to win gold in football but won bronze instead. Czechoslovakia won the gold medal beating German Democratic Republic (East Germany) 1:0 in the final. After many years in the doldrums, Olympic football had a revival in 1980 when the matches attracted nearly 2 million spectators.

Gymnastics

* Soviet gymnast Alexander Dityatin won a medal in each of the eight gymnastics events, including three titles. He was the first athlete to win eight medals at an Olympics. He scored several 10s, the first perfect scores in men's gymnastics since the 1924 Paris Olympics.
* Nikolai Andrianov who had won gold on floor at both Munich and Montreal was pipped this time by Roland Bruckner of East Germany. Andrianov retained the vault title he had won in Montreal.
* Zoltán Magyar (Hungary) retained the Olympic title on pommel horse that he had won in Montreal. He was also 3 times World champion and 3 times European champion on this piece of apparatus.
* In women's gymnastics the USSR won one medal in the All-Around competition. In each Olympics before this they had won minimally two and in Rome 1960 had won all three. In the Friendship Games at Olomouc and at Seoul 1988 they would again win two. In the Team Competition they won the gold medal for the eighth time, continuing the "gold" series started in 1952.
* In the women's gymnastics event finals, a Romanian gymnast medals on each piece of apparatus for the first time:
** Balance Beam – Nadia Comăneci (gold)
** Floor – Nadia Comăneci (gold)
** Uneven Bar – Emilia Eberle (silver) & Melita Ruhn (bronze)
** Vault – Melita Ruhn (bronze)
* In women's gymnastics there was a judging scandal when the Romanian head judge refused to post the score of her fellow Romanian Nadia Comăneci. This score gave Comăneci a silver medal behind Yelena Davydova of the USSR, but the Romanian judge, Mili Simionescu, tried to persuade the other judges to increase Comaneci's score so that she would win gold. After the Olympics, Simionescu was severely criticized by the International Gymnastics Federation. Before the Los Angeles Olympics, the United States gymnastics federation proposed a change in the rules so that a head judge cannot interfere and meddle in the scoring of competitors.

Handball

* East Germany beat the USSR 23–22 in the handball final to take their first medal of any sort in the men's event.

Field hockey

* Women's field hockey was an Olympic sport for the first time. Six countries competed: Austria, India, Poland, Czechoslovakia, USSR, and Zimbabwe. The gold medal was won by the team of Zimbabwe ahead of the firm favorites of the USSR who won bronze. Zimbabwe did not learn it would get a place in the tournament until 35 days before the Games began and chose its team only the weekend before the opening ceremony. None of their players had prior playing experience on an artificial surface. They had not trained at all together before the tournament and warmed up by playing some friendly matches with different Soviet club teams.
* India won a record eighth title in men's field hockey.

Judo

* In Japan's absence, the USSR was expected to improve its showing in judo but wound up with five medals, the same as Montreal, despite the fact that there were two more weight categories. Fifteen countries shared the medals in judo, more than the record twelve countries in Munich and Montreal.

Modern Pentathlon

* In the men's Pentathlon Anatoly Starostin (USSR) became the youngest ever Olympic champion in this sport.
* 26 competitors scored over 5,000 points. In Munich 12 topped this mark and in Montreal 21.
* It was the first time ever at either a world championship or an Olympics that as many as eight teams topped the 15,000-point level.
* In the modern pentathlon George Horvath (Sweden) recorded a perfect score in the pistol shoot. It had been achieved only once before, at the 1936 Olympics.

Rowing

* East Germany dominated rowing, winning eleven of the fourteen titles. The East German men won seven out of eight events, foiled from achieving a clean sweep by Pertti Karppinen of Finland (who defended his Olympic title from Montreal). East German women won four of their six events. The Soviets had been expected to win most of these titles considering their success at Munich and Montreal.
* The East German women's eights team win gold despite only having been selected three months before the Olympics began.
* In the rowing eights with coxswain the British team win silver just 0.74 seconds behind East Germany. The Britons had never rowed together before the Olympic trials and had only ten weeks to prepare for Moscow. The stroke, Richard Stanhope, had never stroked on an eight-man shell before and in the final their steering broke.

Sailing

* Sailing event was held in Tallinn, Estonia which was at the time one of the Soviet republics.
* Soviet sailor Valentyn Mankin won a gold medal in "Star" class. He won Olympic champion titles in "Finn" and "Tempest" classes before, and  remains the only sailor in Olympic history to win gold medals in three different classes.
* Finland (gold) won its first gold Olympic yachting medal and Ireland (silver) won its first ever Olympic yachting medal.
* The USSR had its worst Olympic regatta since Mexico City 1968.
* In 1980 the medals were awarded to yachtsmen from twelve countries, the widest medal distribution in the sport at an Olympics.

Shooting

* The three-day skeet shooting marathon was won by Hans Kjeld Rasmussen of Denmark, the second Olympic gold for Danish shooters since the 1900 Paris Games.
* In the smallbore rifle, prone event, Hungarian Károly Varga captured the gold and equalled the world record despite having broken his shooting hand just prior to the competition.

Swimming

* Vladimir Salnikov (USSR) won three gold medals in swimming. He became the first man in history to break the 15-minute barrier in the 1500 metre freestyle, swimming's equivalent of breaking the four-minute mile. He missed the 1984 Games because of the boycott but won gold again in this event at Seoul 1988.
* Salnikov also won gold in the 4 × 200 m relay and the 400m freestyle. In the 400m freestyle he set a new Olympic record which was just eleven-hundredths of a second outside his own world record.
* In the Montreal final of the 400m freestyle the seventh and eighth place finalists finished in over four minutes. In Moscow sixteen swimmers finished in under four minutes and eight of them did not make the final.
* Duncan Goodhew of Great Britain won the 100 metres breaststroke, beating Miskarov, a strongly favoured Soviet, into second place by half a second.
* Sweden's Bengt Baron, participating in his first major international competition, won gold in the 100 meter backstroke ahead of two Soviets.
* In the men's 4 × 100 metres medley relay each of the eight teams taking part in the final broke its country's national record.
* The first Australian gold since 1972 came in the 4 × 100 men's medley relay.  The Australians had been expecting to win silver behind the hot favourites from the USSR but with Neil Brooks swimming the final leg, the Australians swam the second-fastest time in history.
* East German women dominated the swimming events, winning nine of eleven individual titles, both the relays and setting 6 world records. They also won all three medals in six different races. In total they won 26 of the available 35 medals.
* Barbara Krause (East Germany) became the first woman to go under 55 seconds for the 100 m freestyle.
* Backstroker Rica Reinisch (East Germany) was 20th in the world rankings for 100m in 1979 and not in the top 100 for the 200 m. At the Olympics she broke the world records in both distances winning golds.
* In the 100m butterfly Caren Metschuk (East Germany) beats her more experienced team-mate Andrea Pollack to win gold.
* Petra Schneider (East Germany) shaved three seconds off the world record in the 400m medley.
* As in Montreal the Soviet women made a clean sweep of the medals in the 200m breaststroke. The title in this event was won by Lina Kačiušytė.
* Yulia Bogdanova (USSR), the 1978 world champion in the 100m breaststroke, did not qualify for the Olympic final in that event; the title in this event was won by Ute Geweniger.
* The Soviet women swimmers in the 4 × 100 metres freestyle relay were disqualified.
* Michelle Ford (Australia) won the 800m freestyle more than four seconds ahead of her East German rivals.
* In swimming 230 national, 22 Olympic and ten World records were set.
* Poland won its first ever swimming medal.
* The youngest male gold medallist of these Olympics was Hungarian backstroke swimmer Sándor Wladár, 17 years and 1 week old.

Volleyball

* The prominent nation in both volleyball competitions was the USSR; only once had their teams failed to reach the final. The Soviet men and women had lost only six games between them in the five Olympics since volleyball was incorporated into the list of Olympic sports at Tokyo 1964.

Water polo

* Hungary won a bronze medal in water polo. This continued their run of always winning a medal in this event since 1924.

Weightlifting

* The standard of weightlifting was the highest in the history of the Olympics. There were eighteen senior world records, two junior world records, more than 100 Olympic records and 108 national records set.
* The oldest of weightlifting's Olympic records – the snatch in the lightweight class set in 1964 – was bettered thirteen times.
* 56 kg: Daniel Núñez (Cuba) won gold ahead of the favourite Yurik Sarkisian (USSR).
* 60 kg: Viktor Mazin (USSR), holder of all the world records in this class, was the expected winner with a new Olympic record total. But if only Marek Sewelyn (Poland) had succeeded with his last jerk, he would have scored a surprise win. After fixing the 162.5 kg bar overhead, he let it fall while making a faulty recovery.
* 90 kg: After the 1976 Olympic champion and undisputed favourite, David Rigert (USSR) failed to register a snatch, Peter Baczako (Hungary) became the surprise winner.
* Yurik Vardanyan (USSR) became the first middleweight to total more than 400 kg.
* In the super heavyweight class Vasily Alexeyev (USSR) Olympic champion at Munich and Montreal, eight-time world champion and who in his career set 80 world records, failed to make a single lift.
* The new category in weightlifting – up to 100 kg – was won by Ota Zaremba of Czechoslovakia.

Wrestling

* In Greco-Roman wrestling Ferenc Kocsis of Hungary was declared the winner of the 163 pound class when the Olympic and Soviet defending champion Anatoly Bykov was disqualified for passivity.
* 1980 witnessed the first ever "Graeco" to win a Greco-Roman title at an Olympics; Greece's Stilianos Migiakis took the gold in the featherweight division.
* In the 106 pound freestyle wrestling final Italy's Claudio Pollio put Soviet grappler and twice world champion Sergei Kornilaev to the mat to take an unexpected gold on point standings.
* None of the experts rated the Bulgarian welterweight freestyle wrestler Valentin Raitchev. He had no experience of international competition but won gold.
* The Soviet national head coach said that Nikolai Balboshin – the reigning Olympic champion from Montreal – was unbeatable in his heavyweight division. However Balboshin failed to win a medal.

Closing ceremony

Both the opening and closing ceremonies were shown in Yuri Ozerov's 1981 film Oh, Sport – You Are Peace! ().

Venues

* Central Lenin Stadium area
** Grand Arena² – opening/closing ceremonies, athletics, football (final), equestrian (jumping individual)
** Minor Arena² – volleyball
** Swimming Pool² – water polo
** Sports Palace² – gymnastics, judo
** Druzhba Multipurpose Arena¹ – volleyball
** Streets of Moscow – Athletics (20 & 50 km walk, marathon)
* Olympiysky Sports Complex
** Indoor Stadium¹ – basketball (final), boxing
** Swimming Pool¹ – swimming, diving, modern pentathlon (swimming), water polo (final)
* CSKA (Central Sports Club of the Army) Sports Complex
** CSKA Athletics Fieldhouse, Central Sports Club of the Army¹ – wrestling
** CSKA Football Fieldhouse, Central Sports Club of the Army¹ – fencing, modern pentathlon (fencing)
** CSKA Palace of Sports¹ – basketball
* Venues in metropolitan Moscow
** Dynamo Central Stadium, Grand Arena² – football preliminaries
** Dynamo Central Stadium, Minor Arena² – field hockey
** Young Pioneers Stadium² – field hockey (final)
** Dynamo Palace of Sports¹, Khimki-Khovrino – handball
** Trade Unions' Equestrian Complex¹ – equestrian, modern pentathlon (riding, running)
** Izmailovo Sports Palace¹ – weightlifting
** Sokolniki Sports Palace² – handball (final)
** Dynamo Shooting Range², Mytishchi – shooting, modern pentathlon (shooting)
* Krylatskoye Sports Complex
** Krylatskoye Sports Complex Canoeing and Rowing Basin², Krylatskoye – canoeing, rowing
** Krylatskoye Sports Complex Velodrome¹, Krylatskoye – cycling (track)
** Krylatskoye Sports Complex Cycling Circuit – cycling (individual road race)
** Krylatskoye Sports Complex Archery Field¹, Krylatskoye – archery
* Venues outside Moscow
** Moscow-Minsk Highway – cycling (road team time trial)
** Kirov Stadium², Leningrad, Russian SFSR – football preliminaries
** Dynama Stadium², Minsk, Byelorussian SSR – football preliminaries
** Republican Stadium², Kiev, Ukrainian SSR – football preliminaries
** Olympic Regatta in Tallinn¹, Tallinn, Estonian SSR – sailing

¹ New facilities constructed in preparation for the Olympic Games.
² Existing facilities modified or refurbished in preparation for the Olympic Games.

Medals awarded

The 1980 Summer Olympic programme featured 203 events in the following 21 sports:

*Aquatics
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**Track (4)
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**Dressage (2)
**Eventing (2)
**Show jumping (2)

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**Freestyle (10)
**Greco-Roman (10)

Calendar

All times are in Moscow Time (UTC+3)

Medal count

This is a list of all nations that won medals at the 1980 Games.

To sort this table by nation, total medal count, or any other column, click on the  icon next to the column title.

 Host nation (Soviet Union)

List of participating countries and regions

In the following list, the number in parentheses indicates the number of athletes from each nation that competed in Moscow. Nations in italics competed under the Olympic flag (or, in the cases of New Zealand, Portugal and Spain, under the flags of their respective National Olympic Committees):

* , with seven athletes, withdrew after marching in the Opening Ceremony and took part in the boycott. The 1980 Summer Olympics boycott of the Moscow Olympics was one part of a number of actions initiated by the United States to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.  The Soviet Union and other countries would later boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Background

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 spurred President Jimmy Carter to issue an ultimatum on 20 January 1980: if Soviet troops did not withdraw from Afghanistan within one month the United States would boycott the Moscow Olympics in summer 1980.  After its 24 April meeting, the head of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) Robert Kane told the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that the USOC would be willing to send a team to Moscow if there were a "spectacular change in the international situation". 

Lord Killanin, then president of the IOC, arranged to meet and discuss the boycott with Jimmy Carter and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, before the 24 May deadline, in an attempt to save the Games. Lord Killanin insisted that the Games should continue as scheduled, and Carter reaffirmed the US position to boycott unless the USSR withdrew from Afghanistan. 

Several interventions at the late April 1980 Bilderberg meeting in Aachen included discussion of the implications of the boycott. It was forcefully argued the world would perceive a boycott as little more than a sentimental protest, and not a strategic act. An African representative at the Bilderberg meeting voiced a different view: whether there was additional support outside the US or not, he believed, a boycott would be an effective symbolic protest and be dramatically visible to those within the Soviet Union.  The Carter administration brought considerable pressure to bear on other NATO member-States to support the boycott. Their support was not universal.

The International Olympics Federations protested that the pressures by the US and other supporting countries for the boycott was an inappropriate means to achieve a political end, and the victims of this action would be the athletes.  German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt said that the allies "should simply do as they are told". 

Responses by country and continent

Boxer Muhammad Ali was dispatched by the US administration to Tanzania, Nigeria, and Senegal to convince their leaders to join the boycott. It was widely said in the US domestic press that reactions to Ali's public comments in Tanzania supported the view that his diplomatic mission was a failure. 

Certain countries ultimately joined the USA in a full boycott of the Games. These included Japan and West Germany where Chancellor Schmidt was able to convince the National Olympic Committee (NOC) to support the boycott by a narrow margin. China, the Philippines, Argentina and Canada also boycotted the Games entirely. Some of these countries competed at the alternative "Liberty Bell Classic" or Olympic Boycott Games held in Philadelphia that same year.

The governments of the United Kingdom, France and Australia supported the boycott, but left any final decision over the participation of their country's athletes to their respective NOCs and the decision of their individual athletes. The United Kingdom and France sent a much smaller athletic delegation than would have originally been possible. The British associations that governed equestrian sports, hockey, and yachting completely boycotted the 1980 summer Olympics.  Nevertheless, the United Kingdom sent 170 sportsmen and women to compete, the largest team of athletes from among West European countries. 

Spain, Italy, Sweden, Iceland and Finland were other principal nations representing western Europe at the Games. Italian athletes serving in its military corps could not attend the Games, however, because of the national government's official support of the boycott. Many events were affected by the loss of participants and some US-born athletes who were citizens of other countries, such as Italy and Australia, did compete in Moscow.

A firm enemy of the United States under Ayatollah Khomeini's new theocracy, Iran also boycotted the Moscow Games after Khomeini joined the condemnation by the United Nations and the Islamic Conference of the invasion of Afghanistan.  Independently of the United States, the Islamic Conference urged a boycott of Moscow after the invasion;  the Ayatollah meanwhile accused Moscow of arming the Baluchis against his regime.

Many teams were avoided by Soviet television at the Games during the opening and closing ceremonies because their national governments officially supported the boycott. Their national colors could not be flown nor could their anthems be played (Australia, Andorra, Belgium, Denmark, France, United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Puerto Rico, San Marino, Spain, and Switzerland).

Athletes and sportspeople competing without national flags or anthems

Lord Killanin permitted NOC-qualified athletes to compete at the Games without their national flags or anthems (which allowed NOCs to send athletes in a non-national context) but this did not allow other individuals lacking NOC sanction to participate in the Games as this was perceived by the IOC as a potential weakening of their authority. Four sportspeople (including one athlete) from New Zealand competed independently and marched under their NOC flag because the government officially supported the boycott.  The athletes of 16 countries did not fly their national flags. Instead NOC flags were raised and the Olympic Anthem replaced their national anthems at the medal ceremonies. There was one awards ceremony where three NOC flags were raised.

Other modifications were made in the Games activities, such as when the Boycott prevented Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau from attending the Moscow Games. Sandra Henderson and Stéphane Préfontaine, the final torchbearers at the previous games, were sent in his stead to participate in the Antwerp Ceremony at the opening ceremony, and 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. The Antwerp flag was received by an IOC member from the USA instead of the then-current Los Angeles mayor, Tom Bradley; there was no handover to Los Angeles ceremony at the closing.

With only eighty participating countries, the lowest number since 1956, the Moscow Games have the distinction that more world records were set there than by the fuller contingent attending at the previous summer games in Montreal, 1976.

Response by athletes

On May 24, 1980, Gary Fanelli wore a shirt that read "The Road to Moscow Ends Here" for the marathon time trial in response to the boycott of the Moscow Olympics.  The marathon took place in Buffalo, New York.   

Non-participating countries

Sixty-five countries that were invited to participate in the 1980 Olympics did not do so for various reasons including support for the boycott and economic reasons. Qatar could not be invited until IOC recognition which occurred in 1980 but too late to be invited.  Taiwan refused to participate as a result of the 1979 Nagoya Resolution, in which the People's Republic of China agreed to participate in IOC activities if Taiwan was referred to as "Chinese Taipei".

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Altered participation

The sixteen nations that follow participated in the Games under some adjustment to full conventional participation in the Games activities.

Nations that did not participate in the Opening Ceremony

Seven countries participated in the Games without taking part in the Opening Ceremony:

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National teams represented at the Opening Ceremony by Chef de Mission

Two nations sent one representative each (Chef de Mission) who entered the Olympic stadium during the Opening Ceremony under the Olympic flag; for each country this was a token gesture, as their governments allowed athletes to take part in the Games if they chose to do so. Ireland also competed under the Olympic flag, rather than its own.
*  – Richard Palmer 
*  – Ken Ryan 

Nations under the Olympic Flag by their own athletes

At least 5 national teams participated at the Games under the Olympic flag rather than their respective National or NOC flags which would denote that their participation was officially sanctioned by their respective nations. :
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Nations that competed under their respective NOC flag

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Aftermath

The succeeding 1984 Summer Olympics, held in Los Angeles, United States saw another boycott, this time led by the Soviet Union. On May 8, 1980, the Soviet Union issued a statement that the country would boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles due to "chauvinistic sentiments and an anti-Soviet hysteria being whipped up in the United States".  Thirteen Soviet allies joined the boycott, making a total of fourteen nations that boycotted the Olympics. Iran and Albania were the only countries that boycotted both Moscow and Los Angeles. Romania was the only Eastern bloc country that participated in the 1984 Games.
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