Mexico 1968: The games that broke the mould
The Olympic Games Mexico 1968 broke ground in more ways than one. They were the first modern Games to run a year-long Cultural Olympiad and the first to be held in a Spanish-speaking, Latin-American, developing country.
Never before had the Games been televised live fully in colour to an international audience, and never before had a woman lit the Olympic cauldron. In the sporting arena, a synthetic track was used for athletics events for the first time, and this was the first Summer Games to test athletes for doping. These and other developments all helped project a contemporary image of Mexico to the rest of the world.
GROUND-BREAKING DESIGN
Mexico 1968 marked the beginning of corporate design in the Olympic Games, in which all elements such as the emblem, fonts, colours, pictograms, publications, merchandising, etc. harmonise and convey a clear message. Mexico City was the first Olympic host city to have an Olympic Identity Programme (later referred to as the Look of the Games).
The programme’s design team devised a unique look for Mexico 1968 and filled the streets of Mexico City with colourful, hypnotic graphics, creating a model for other event organisers to follow. Taking its inspiration from the country’s indigenous folk art, while also projecting a vision of a modern, ambitious Mexico, the Games’ emblem cleverly incorporated the five Olympic rings into the number “68”. With its dynamic concentric lines, it became an instant design classic and a role model for many future generations of graphic designers. The striking pictograms created for the Games remain equally influential.
AN INTERNATIONAL TOURISM DESTINATION
Mexico 1968 enabled the country and its capital city to transform their international image and attract visitors from all over the world. It was the first of several major sports events that helped trigger remarkable growth in the country’s tourism industry, with advances in television and communications also showcasing the country to a new global audience.
A popular destination for North American visitors in the 1960s, Mexico was keen to present “a cohesive and contemporary image” of itself to the watching world, one that challenged stereotypical views of the country. The promotion of archaeological sites also attracted a different kind of tourist from those lured by the country’s beaches.
A NEW ERA FOR ATHLETICS
Three US athletes took their track and field events to new heights with performances that resonate to this day. The USA’s Dick Fosbury changed the high jump forever with his revolutionary backward jumping style, which earned him a gold medal and an Olympic record. Known as the Fosbury Flop, the technique has been used by high jumpers ever since. Fellow US athlete long jumper Bob Beamon took advantage of Mexico City’s thin air to set a new world record of 8.90m, which stood for 23 years, and compatriot Jim Hines won a gold of his own by becoming the first man to break the 10-second barrier in an Olympic 100m race.
ADVANCES IN SPORTS SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
The Olympic Games Mexico 1968 marked a turning point in the development of sports science. It allowed scientists to improve their understanding of the effects of altitude on performance and led to advances such as the development of high-altitude training, which is now a common training method in endurance sport. Sprinters excelled at the Games: of the 26 Olympic and world athletics records set, only one came in a track event over 800 metres.
The use of the first synthetic all-weather (tartan) athletics track in Olympic history played a part in those record-breaking performances, giving athletes a harder, more uniform surface to run on than the cinder tracks used at previous Games.
Meanwhile, the first in-competition anti-doping tests at a summer edition of the Olympic Games were conducted by International Federations on their own athletes, with the IOC randomly selecting a minimum of 12 athletes a day for urine tests only. Only one athlete tested positive. Despite the first anti-doping rule being implemented at the Olympic Games London 1908, it was not until 1968 in Grenoble for the Winter Games and Mexico City for the Summer Games, that the inaugural use of Olympic in-competition anti-doping tests were seen.
SPORTS INFRASTRUCTURE STILL IN USE
Twenty-one of Mexico 1968’s 23 competition venues remain in use today, with all seven of the new venues still hosting sports competitions and serving high performance athletes, sports clubs and residents alike. A total of six of these venues were renovated in 2018, as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations. The other two venues have since been dismantled, as planned.
Four of the venues can be found at the Magdalena Mixhuca Sports Complex, the largest facility of its kind in Mexico. The complex has grown in size since the Olympic Games, and has become an integral part of the city’s sporting and cultural scene hosting a large range of events including, for example, the Formula 1 race. Moreover, all the apartments in the two Olympic Villages were sold on the open market after the Games, providing social housing for the city.
AN IMAGE THAT DEFINED THE YEAR
The year 1968 went down in history as a time of great social and political change around the world, and the Olympic Games in Mexico City were marked by one of the most notable images of that year.
USA sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised clenched-fist salutes on the podium, protesting racial discrimination in the United States and expressing solidarity with the Civil Rights Movement, while Australian Peter Norman wore a badge in support. Their actions were both condemned and celebrated, and produced an unforgettable image that defined the year.