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The White/Brown Winter Olympic Carnival: Do you remember? Olympic drama!


ReleaseTheEvil

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Hey folks!

 

In this thread we will be discussing memorable Olympic Drama that has occured over the history of the games. I invite you all to discuss any events that you remember that stuck out to you, or perhaps you attended or followed closely on television. I'll start.

 

I'll start with a bit of a darker one but one that has its place in the darker recesses of Olympic History.

 

Via Wikipedia:

 

Ap_munich905_t.jpg

 

The Munich massacre was an attack during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany on 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team, who were taken hostage and eventually killed, along with a German police officer, by the Palestinian group Black September. Shortly after the crisis began, they demanded the release of 234 prisoners held in Israeli jails,and the release of the founders (Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof) of the German Red Army Faction, who were held in German prisons.Black September called the operation "Iqrit and Biram", after two Palestinian Christian villages whose inhabitants were expelled by the Haganah in 1948.

 

The attackers were apparently given logistical assistance by German neo-Nazis.Five of the eight members of Black September were killed by police officers during a failed rescue attempt. The three surviving attackers were captured, but later released by West Germany following the hijacking of a Lufthansa airliner. Israel responded to the killers' release with Operation Spring of Youth and Operation Wrath of God, during which Israeli intelligence agency Mossad and special forces systematically tracked down and killed Palestinians suspected of involvement in the massacre.

 

This particularly stuck out to me because in every way it goes against what the Olympics stand for, and saw innocent lives lost because of a political/religious conflict they had no part in. I think this was quite a dramatic moment in Olympic history but it was only one of many, with many more to discuss. What dramatic Olympic moments stand out to you?

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That's terribly sad!  I don't remember hearing about that incident before.  It's so tragic because the Olympics is supposed to be about uniting different countries, races, religions, regions.

 

In all honesty, the only Olympic drama I remember is the Nancy Kerrigan incident.  It happened in 1994--so I was 11 years old.  My sister and I were crazy about figure skating at the time, and so I was well aware of the attack on Kerrigan organized by Tonya Harding.  Though no where near as awful as the Munich massacre, it is another example of how the Olympics were turned into an event based on fear and hate rather than community.

 

On the other hand, I remember the spectacular win by the American girls gymnastics team in 1996.  Karri Strug's vault was so incredible!

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There are two memorable moments that stick out the most for me.

 

One of them also was the very dramatic "Whack Heard Round the World" which refers to the attack on Nancy Kerrigan in 1994.

 

t all started on Jan. 6, 1994. Figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was attacked by a metal-baton-wielding assailant as she left the ice after a practice session in Detroit.
 
Originally favored to win the 1994 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, the now-injured Kerrigan was forced to the sidelines.
 
In her absence, 1991 champion Tonya Harding captured the spotlight, the U.S. title, and a spot on the U.S. Olympic team for the following month's Winter Games in Lillehammer.
 
It didn't take long for the mystery to unravel.
 
Assault accomplice Shawn Eckardt caved and told the FBI about the plot that was hatched with Harding's ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, to get Kerrigan out of the way.
 
Eventually Harding admitted that she knew about the attack after the fact but failed to come forward. The United States Olympic Committee was about to kick Harding off the team when a $25 million lawsuit filed by Harding's lawyers changed its mind.
 
The attack on Kerrigan's knee might not have seemed so bad to her compared to the crush of tabloid journalists that descended on her in the next few weeks as she tried to recover.
 
Kerrigan recovered in time to compete in Lillehammer, and the stage was set for the ultimate showdown. The suffocating media coverage gave the entire proceedings an electric atmosphere. It was good versus evil on the world's biggest stage. It was called the Battle of Wounded Knee II.
 
Heading into the finals, Kerrigan was in first place, ahead of Ukrainian teenager and world champion Oksana Baiul and France's Surya Bonaly. Harding was a distant 10th.
 
In the finals, a controversial 5–4 split among the judges gave the gold to Baiul by the slimmest of margins. Kerrigan got silver, and Harding got to stay out of jail, which is more than can be said for her ex-husband and the band of goons he hired to club Kerrigan.

 

 

The second one was dramatic, but in a good way! It's also one of my most favorite memories of the Olympics, ever! I love Scott Hamilton and his whole story. He's an amazing person to this day.

 

 

First was seeing him as the flag bearer for the USA in the opening ceremonies in 1980 Olymipics in Lake Placid, NY...

 

1c438a86237846118f6e4445c495f89b.jpg

 

Then his amazing performances at the 1984 Olymics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia...

 

 

And lastly the gold medal ceremony in 1984...

 

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I actually remember the hostage crisis at the 1972 Munich Games. I was young but it is the kind of thing that does stick with you. It was incredibly sad.

 

It was also a completely different time. No 24 hour media, many of us actually heard of the failed rescue attempt on the scheduled network Olympic coverage that had to continue while this awful event was going on. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db95pcFRuII

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I am too young to personally remember the events in Munich; I would have just been a baby. One drama that sticks out in my mind was the backpack bomb in the Olympic park in 1996 in Atlanta. I was having trouble sleeping that night and turned on the radio to listen to music. I wound up hearing a news bulletin about a bomb going off at the Olympics. I immediately turned on a TV and found that even at one in the morning, all the channels were doing news broadcasts covering it. Two people died and a huge manhunt happened. They eventually caught the person who did it but at the time it was very scary.

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That's terribly sad!  I don't remember hearing about that incident before.  It's so tragic because the Olympics is supposed to be about uniting different countries, races, religions, regions.

 

 

The movie Munich by Steven Spielberg deals with the aftermath of the incident - Israeli agents hunting down the terrorists. 

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There certainly were some great dramatic moments as well. Another one that comes to mind:

 

Via Wikipedia:

 

1968_Olympics_Black_Power_salute.jpg

 

"The 1968 Olympics Black Power salute was an act of protest by the African-American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos during their medal ceremony at the 1968 Summer Olympics in the Olympic Stadium in Mexico City. As they turned to face their flags and hear the American national anthem (The Star-Spangled Banner), they each raised a black-gloved fist and kept them raised until the anthem had finished. Smith, Carlos and Australian silver medalist Peter Norman all wore human rights badges on their jackets. In his autobiography, Silent Gesture, Tommie Smith stated that the gesture was not a "Black Power" salute, but a "human rights salute". The event is regarded as one of the most overtly political statements in the history of the modern Olympic Games."

 

This is a video about the salute and the story behind it:

 

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And because I'm Canadian and biased, one of my personal favorite Olympic memories. :smile: Listened to it in my car on the radio on the way to work. Was so hard to leave my tv! The overtime goal that saw Canada win the men's hockey gold medal at the 2010 Olympic Games at home against the USA.

 

Video of the goal and other memorable Hockey Canada highlights preceding it:

 

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Hey folks!

 

In this thread we will be discussing memorable Olympic Drama that has occured over the history of the games. I invite you all to discuss any events that you remember that stuck out to you, or perhaps you attended or followed closely on television. I'll start.

 

I'll start with a bit of a darker one but one that has its place in the darker recesses of Olympic History.

 

Via Wikipedia:

 

Ap_munich905_t.jpg

 

The Munich massacre was an attack during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany on 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team, who were taken hostage and eventually killed, along with a German police officer, by the Palestinian group Black September. Shortly after the crisis began, they demanded the release of 234 prisoners held in Israeli jails,and the release of the founders (Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof) of the German Red Army Faction, who were held in German prisons.Black September called the operation "Iqrit and Biram", after two Palestinian Christian villages whose inhabitants were expelled by the Haganah in 1948.

 

The attackers were apparently given logistical assistance by German neo-Nazis.Five of the eight members of Black September were killed by police officers during a failed rescue attempt. The three surviving attackers were captured, but later released by West Germany following the hijacking of a Lufthansa airliner. Israel responded to the killers' release with Operation Spring of Youth and Operation Wrath of God, during which Israeli intelligence agency Mossad and special forces systematically tracked down and killed Palestinians suspected of involvement in the massacre.

 

This particularly stuck out to me because in every way it goes against what the Olympics stand for, and saw innocent lives lost because of a political/religious conflict they had no part in. I think this was quite a dramatic moment in Olympic history but it was only one of many, with many more to discuss. What dramatic Olympic moments stand out to you?

I was in Germany when it happened. We were flying back to SF. There were armed German soldiers all over the airport which made me uncomfortable. They were searching people behind screens.

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That would be pretty scary Ry. 

 

 

I remember another tragedy...Nodar David Kumaritashvili was a Georgian luger who suffered a fatal crash during a training run for the 2010 Winter Olympics competition in Whistler, Canada, on the day of the opening ceremony. I remember watching the crash on the news that day. There had been a lot of talk before that of the luge track being too fast. It was 15-20mph faster than any track in the world. 

 

Kumaritashvili died during Friday practice when he lost control of his sled and slammed into a trackside steel pole at nearly 90 mph. Olympic and luge federation officials blamed the accident on the athlete, saying he was late in coming out of the next-to-last turn and failed to compensate.
 
Concerns about the course, the world's fastest, had been raised for months. Many worried that the $100 million-plus venue was too technically demanding, and that only Canada's sliders would have enough time to adapt to it during practice.
 
After the crash, luge events were moved down the track to make races slower and a wooden wall erected atop the curve where Kumaritashvili flew off his sled. Padding was added to steel girders beyond the wall.
 
Kumaritashvili's father, David Kumaritashvili, said that his son told him shortly before the accident that he was afraid of the new, high-speed track, but was intent on competing. His father angrily denounced claims that his son was to blame, and defended him as a skilled luger.
 
"He mustn't be blamed," the 46-year-old father, a Soviet-era luger, told The Associated Press. "He was thrown out, but why had they failed to build a protective barrier for such a case?"

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I remember the Munich Tragedy too, though I was very young.

 

A happier memory would be the 14 year old Romanian gymnast Nadie Comaneci at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. She was the first gymnast to get a perfect score (10, back then), and still holds the record for being the youngest Olympic gymnastics all-around champion ever. She was absolutely breathtaking!

 

You can read more about her here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadia_Com%C4%83neci
but I'll quote a bit:

Montréal Olympics

At the age of 14, Comăneci became one of the stars of the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montréal. During the team portion of the competition on July 18, her routine on the uneven bars was awarded a perfect ten.[19] It was the first time in modern Olympic gymnastics history that the score had ever been awarded.[20] When Omega SA, the traditional Olympics scoreboard manufacturer, asked before the 1976 games whether four digits would be necessary for gymnastics, it was told that a perfect 10.00 was not possible.[21] Nadia's perfect marks were thus displayed as 1.00 instead.[22] The crowd was at first confused, but soon understood and gave her a rousing ovation.[20] Over the course of the Olympics, Comăneci would earn six additional tens, en route to capturing the all-around, beam, and bars titles, and a bronze medal on the floor exercise. The Romanian team also placed second in the team competition, capturing silver.[23]

Comăneci was the first Romanian gymnast to win the Olympic all-around title. She also holds the record for being the youngest Olympic gymnastics all-around champion ever. With the revised age-eligibility requirements in the sport (gymnasts must now turn 16 in the calendar year to compete in the Olympics; in 1976 gymnasts had to be 14 by the first day of the competition[24]), it is currently not possible to legally break this record.

 

 

Nadia-Comaneci-gymnastics-351653_300_334

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