1980E

Moscow 1980

Archery

Athletics

Boxing

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Handball

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Modern Pentathlon

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Skateboarding

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With U.S. athletes absent because of an official boycott, Great Britain’s rookie sprinter Alan Wells took advantage to strike the gold.

Moscow 1980 | Olympic Games

Originals

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Moscow 1980 - How Scotland’s Alan Wells became an accidental hero

The powerful story of how a revolutionary boxing experiment produced Teofilo Stevenson and a legacy of Cuban success at the Olympic Games.

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The People’s Fighters | Five Rings Films

The event was held at the splendidly atmospheric Sports Palace in Luzhniki, where the tight confines and vociferous crowd made for a superb fighting arena\.

Khabareli surges to judo crown

The favourites for the gold medal at the Trade Unions Olympics Sports Centre were the home hope, Boris Isachenko, and the bronze medallist from Montreal, Italian Giancarlo Ferrari\.

Unsung Finn Poikolainen wins archery gold

The Bridgestone ambassador takes a look back on his glittering career, explains how to become resilient, and why he never stretches\.

Olympic Channel Podcast: Daley Thompson - double Olympic Champion and Legend

The first Games to be held behind the Iron Curtain in a socialist country, they were attended by 5,179 athletes \(1,115 women and 4,064 men\), from 80 National Olympic Committees \(NOCs\)\. Among the participating nations, seven NOCs &ndash; Angola, Botswana, Cyprus, Jordan, Laos, Mozambique and the Seychelles &ndash; made their

Moscow 1980: Forty years on

In July 1904, at the Games of the III Olympiad in St Louis, 35\-year\-old British/Irish athlete Thomas Kiely won the all\-around competition\. This comprised 10 events \(100\-yard dash, shot put, high jump, 880\-yard walk, hammer throw, pole vault, 120\-yard hurdles, 56\-pound weight throw, long jump and one\-mile run\) and was

Daley Thompson becomes the undisputed king of the decathlon at Moscow 1980

Whenever he looks back to the July day when he and his three colleagues in Australia’s 4x100m medley relay team secured a stunning victory in the final at Moscow 1980, Peter Evans always remembers one moment in particular\. It came just before the race, when Evans, who was to swim

Evans leads Quietly Confident Quartet to Olympic triumph in the pool

After almost three weeks of intense competition, it’s a chance for all the athletes to relax and celebrate in the festival of sport to which they have all contributed\.

Poignant Closing Ceremony rounds off challenging Games

The red\-hot favourite had been Frank Shorter, the defending champion, but the East German Cierpinski emerged from the pack to record his first major international success\.

Cierpinski enters marathon hall of fame

A powerful yet graceful runner, Wockel had claimed the 200m gold medal at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal at the age of 21 running under her maiden name of Eckert\.

Wockel leads East German sprint charge

The all\-conquering Red machine had dominated Olympic competition since women first started competing in volleyball way back 1964\.

Soviet volleyball team grind out gold medal

Man or woman and machine in a race against the clock, no other competitors in sight\. Those hours and hours of intense training finally put to the test in the cauldron of Olympic competition where there is no second chance\.

Thoms breaks 63-second barrier in race against clock

The brainchild of Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the International Olympic Committee, it is an event traditionally stretched over five days and which throws a unique set of challenges to the field\.

Starostin enters modern pentathlon record books

With the likes of Stanley Floyd and Harvey Glance being forced to watch from home in the United States, the favourites after the early rounds appeared to be Cuban Silvio Leonard, Italian floater Pietro Mennea and Pole Marian Woronin\.

Flying Scotsman Wells emerges as world’s fastest man

However the absentees did not significantly detract from a tournament of high quality at Moscow’s Army Sports Club, where a female French fencer came to the fore\.

France’s Trinquet foils Soviet party

On a steamy afternoon, the Russian fans who packed into the Grand Arena were eager for a victory for home favourite Konstantin Volkov, yet the contest developed into an increasingly tense affair\.

Kozakiewicz denies local hero in pole vault

Sedykh was hammer\-throwing, and had it not been for the Soviet boycott of the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, the Ukrainian\-born Russian would rank alongside the great multiple champions\.

Hammer time for Sedykh

Coe had been expected to win over his favourite distance, but he had run a shocking tactical race and Ovett was able to inflict a rare defeat on his British team\-mate\.

Coe bounces back in 1,500m to overhaul Ovett

Two years of breaking world records and studiously avoiding each other at the world’s major track meetings meant something had to give when the two faced off over 800m and 1500m\.

Ovett stuns compatriot Coe in 800m showdown

The scene was set for the 353\-pound giant from Ryazan to make it an unprecedented hat\-trick of gold medals in the super heavyweight category after record\-breaking triumphs in Munich and Montreal\.

Injury leaves weightlifter Alekseyev with a mountain to climb

She had barely turned 20 yet stunned the crowd in Canada with an Olympic record throw of 69 metres to capture the gold medal\.

Jahl takes discus gold again

He was a magnificent physical specimen: blessed with chiselled good looks and effortless grace and speed around the ring, Stevenson had crushed all opposition in winning gold medals in the heavyweight category in Munich and Montreal\.

Teofilo STEVENSON

Stevenson confirms heavyweight status with third straight gold

The only major absentees from the tournament at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow were the world champions, West Germany, and a formidable line\-up of teams targeted gold at the Sokolniki Sports Palace\.

East Germans takes handball crown

Andrianov had been the darling of the men’s event in Montreal four years earlier, dazzling the crowd with a clinical display which saw him net four gold medals, including in the blue riband all\-around event\.

Gymnast Dityatin emerges from the shadows

With Moscow landlocked, the regatta was hosted off Tallinn in Estonia at Pirita where the waters offered blustery and often unpredictable conditions\.

Mankin shines as Brazilians top medal table

Led by the United States, a great swathe of nations opted not to compete at the Games in protest at the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan the previous year\.

Boycott fails to dampen spirits

Moscow 1980 - Stories Mosaic

As the Olympic Games Paris 2024 are set to begin, we check in on those who lit up the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.
This remarkable collection of athletes include inaugural medallists in new Olympic sports, such as skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing, and those who earned a first-ever medal for

TOKYO, JAPAN - AUGUST 01: Lamont Marcell Jacobs of Team Italy celebrates after winning the Men's 100m Final on day nine of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Olympic Stadium on August 01, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)

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Top history makers at Tokyo 2020 and where they are now

On the 40th anniversary of the Olympic Games Moscow 1980, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach relives his experience as a boycotted athlete from the Games, and rues that it denied athletes the opportunity to achieve their Olympic dream. It 'achieved nothing' in his words.

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Thomas Bach reflects with sadness on Moscow 1980 Olympic boycott

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Olympic Games Moscow 1980

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All Stories

Top history makers at Tokyo 2020 and where they are now

Olympic Channel Podcast: Daley Thompson - double Olympic Champion and Legend

Moscow 1980: Forty years on

Thomas Bach reflects with sadness on Moscow 1980 Olympic boycott

Evans leads Quietly Confident Quartet to Olympic triumph in the pool