1980 Summer Olympics: Games of the XXII Olympiad, in Moscow, USSR

 

• 1980 Summer Olympics boycott: U.S. President Jimmy Carter instigated a boycott of the games to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, as the Games were held in Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union. Many nations refused to participate in the Games. The exact number of boycotting nations is difficult to determine, as a total of 66 eligible countries did not participate, but some of those countries withdrew due to financial hardships, only claiming to join the boycott to avoid embarrassment.^[source?] Iran also boycotted the Moscow Games owing to Ayatollah Khomeini's support for the Islamic Conference's condemnation of the invasion of Afghanistan. Only 80 countries participated in the Moscow games, fewer than the 92 that had joined the 1976 games and the lowest number since the 1960 Rome Games which had also featured 80 countries. A substitute event, titled the Liberty Bell Classic, often referred to as Olympic Boycott Games, was held at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia by 29 of the boycotting countries.

Sixty-five countries that were invited to the 1980 Olympics, plus Qatar, did not participate for various reasons, including support for the boycott and economic reasons. (Qatar's 1980 IOC recognition came too late for it 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". However, China boycotted the 1980 Moscow Games as well.

• A 1989 report by a committee of the Australian Senate claimed that "there is hardly a medal winner at the Moscow Games, certainly not a gold medal winner...who is not on one sort of drug or another: usually several kinds. The Moscow Games might well have been called the Chemists' Games". A member of the IOC Medical Commission, Manfred Donike, privately ran additional tests with a new technique for identifying abnormal levels of testosterone by measuring its ratio to epitestosterone in urine. Twenty percent of the specimens he tested, including those from sixteen gold medalists would have resulted in disciplinary proceedings had the tests been official. The results of Donike's unofficial tests later convinced the IOC to add his new technique to their testing protocols. The first documented case of "blood doping" occurred at the 1980 Summer Olympics as a runner was transfused with two pints of blood before winning medals in the 5000 m and 10,000 m.

 

• Polish gold medallist pole vaulter Władysław Kozakiewicz showed an obscene bras d'honneur gesture in all four directions to the jeering Soviet public, causing an international scandal and almost losing his medal as a result. There were numerous incidents and accusations of Soviet officials using their authority to negate marks by opponents to the point that IAAF officials found the need to look over the officials' shoulders to try to keep the events fair. There were also accusations of opening stadium gates to advantage Soviet athletes, and causing other disturbances to opposing athletes.

These are the 10 countries that won the most medals in the 1980 Summer Olympics.

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Soviet Union (URS) (Hosts)	80	69	46	195
2	East Germany (GDR)	47	37	42	126
3	Bulgaria (BUL)	8	16	17	41
4	Cuba (CUB)	8	7	5	20
5	Italy (ITA)	8	3	4	15
6	Hungary (HUN)	7	10	15	32
7	Romania (ROU)	7	6	13	25
8	France (FRA)	6	5	3	14
9	Great Britain (GBR)	5	7	9	21
10	Poland (POL)	3	14	15	32

• IOC page for the 1980 Summer Olympics