1976 Summer Olympics

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Template:Olympics infobox The 1976 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXI Olympiad, were held in 1976 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. These are the summer Olympic Games organized by the International Olympic Committee. Montreal was awarded the rights to the 1976 games in May of 1970.

1 Highlights
2 Medals awarded
3 Medal count
4 Nations
5 Boycotting countries
6 Montreal - Host City
7 See also
- 7.1 Olympics with significant boycotts
8 Reference
9 External links

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Highlights

The Games were opened by Queen Elizabeth II and the entire royal family attended the opening ceremonies for the games.
Canada, the host country, left with only five silver and six bronze medals. It was the first time in Olympic history that the host country of the Summer Games won no gold medals. This feat had occurred previously only in the Winter Games - 1924 in Chamonix, France and 1928 in St. Moritz, Switzerland. This later occurred at the 1984 Winter Games in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, and once more for Canada at the 1988 Calgary Games.
In protest at a tour of South Africa by the New Zealand rugby team early in the year, Congo's official Jean Claude Ganga led a boycott of 28 African nations as the IOC refused to bar the New Zealand team. Some of the nations (including Morocco, Cameroon and Egypt) had already participated however, as the teams only withdrew after the first day. From Southern and Central Africa, only Senegal and Ivory Coast took part. Both Iraq and Guyana also opted to join the Congolese-led boycott.
Because of the Munich massacre, security at these games was high, like they were earlier in the year at the Winter games in Innsbruck, Austria.
The organisation of the Olympics was financially bad for Montreal, as the city faced debts well after the Games had finished. The Olympic Stadium, a daring design of French architect Roger Taillibert, remains a lasting monument to the huge deficit, as it never had an effective retractable roof, and the tower was only completed after the Olympics. The Montreal games of 1976 are the most expensive Games ever organised.
The Olympic Flame was "electronically" transmitted from Athens to Ottawa, by means of an electronic pulse derived from the actual burning flame. From Ottawa, it was carried by hand to Montreal. After a rainstorm that doused the Olympic flame a few days after the games had opened, an official relit the flame using his cigarette lighter. Organizers quickly doused it again and relit it using a backup of the original flame.
14-year-old Nadia Comaneci of Romania scored seven perfect 10s and won three gold medals, including the prestigious All Around. In women's gymnastics three gold medals were also been won by Nellie Kim of USSR. Nikolai Andrianov of USSR won four gold medals, including All Around, in men's gymnastics.
Viktor Saneyev (Soviet Union) won his third consecutive triple jump gold medal, while Klaus Dibiasi of Italy did the same in the platform diving event.
Alberto Juantorena of Cuba became the first man to win both the 400 m and 800 m at the same Olympics. Finland's Lasse Virén also achieved a double in the 5000 and 10,000 m and finished 5th in the marathon, thereby failing to equal Emil Zátopek's 1952 achievements.
Boris Onischenko, a member of the Soviet Union's modern pentathlon team, was disqualified after it was discovered that he had rigged his épée to register a hit when there wasn't one. Because of this the USSR modern pentathlon team was disqualified. Onischenko earned the enmity of other Soviet Olympic team members and, for example, USSR volleyball team members threatened to throw him out of the hotel's window if they met him.
Women's events were introduced in basketball, handball and rowing.
Five American boxers - Sugar Ray Leonard, Leon Spinks, Michael Spinks, Leo Randolph and Howard Davis Jr. won gold medals in boxing. This has been often called the greatest Olympic boxing team the United States ever had, and, out of the five American gold medalists in boxing, all but Davis went on to become professional world champions.
Princess Anne of the United Kingdom was the only female competitor not to have to submit to a sex test. She was a member of her country's equestrian team.
Japanese gymnast Shun Fujimoto performed on a broken right knee, and helped the Japanese team win the gold medal for the team championship. Fujimoto broke his leg on the floor exercise, and due to the closeness in the overall standings with the USSR, he hid the extent of the injury. With a broken knee, Fujimoto was able to complete his event on the rings, performing a perfect triple somersault dismount, maintaining perfect posture. He scored a 9.7 thus securing gold for Japan. Years later, when asked if he would do it again, he stated bluntly "No, I would not."

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Medals awarded

Image:Biodome1.jpg See the medal winners, ordered by sport:

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Medal count

1976 Summer Olympics medal count					Image:Olympische Ringe.svg
Pos	Country	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Image:Flag of the Soviet Union.svg USSR	49	41	35	125
2	Image:Flag of East Germany.svg East Germany (GDR)	40	25	25	90
3	Image:Flag of the United States.svg United States	34	35	25	94
4	Image:Flag of Germany.svg West Germany (FRG)	10	12	17	39
5	Image:Flag of Japan.svg Japan	9	6	10	25
6	Image:Flag of Poland PRL.png Poland	7	6	13	26
7	Image:Flag of Bulgaria.svg Bulgaria	6	9	7	22
8	Image:Flag of Cuba.svg Cuba	6	4	3	13
9	Image:Romania flag 1947-1989.png Romania	4	9	14	27
10	Image:Flag of Hungary.svg Hungary	4	5	13	22
Template:See

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Nations

Image:1976 Olympic games countries.PNG Articles about Montreal Summer Olympics by nation:

East Germany
Ecuador
Egypt<ref name=withdraw>Athletes from Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia competed on July 18-20 before these nations withdrew from the Games.</ref>
Fiji
Finland
France
Great Britain
Greece
Guatemala
Haiti
Honduras
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Iran
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Jamaica
Japan

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Boycotting countries

The following countries boycotted the Games Template:Ref Image:Olympic boycotts 1976 1980 1984.PNG

Note: Zaire did not compete, but claimed financial causes rather than political.

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Montreal - Host City

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Selection

Other candidate cities in the bid to host the 1976 summer Olympic Games were Moscow and Los Angeles. The final choice was made on May 12, 1970 during the 69th IOC session in Amsterdam. Los Angeles was eliminated in the first round of voting. In the second round, Montreal defeated Moscow, 41 votes to 28 (with one blank vote). The two cities hosted the very next two summer games: Moscow in 1980 and Los Angeles in 1984.

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The Olympics in Canada

1976 was the first time Canada hosted the Olympics. It has subsequently hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, the largest city in the province of Alberta, and was selected to host the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the largest city in the province of British Columbia, and it will become the largest major city in a country ever to host a Winter Olympics. Coincidentally, Toronto hosted the 1976 Summer Paralympics.

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The Olympics in Montreal

Image:JeanDrapeau.jpg

Montreal saw the 1976 games as a chance to build on its world prestige that was first developed during the 1967 World's Fair, known as Expo 67 on Canada's centennial.

Montreal massively overspent on the Olympics, following Mayor Jean Drapeau's adage, The Olympics can no more lose money than a man can have a baby (a statement mocked in a political cartoon depicting him on the telephone asking for a "Morgentaler"). However, with rampant corruption, and lack of financial controls, Montreal did indeed lose money, over $2 billion dollars (US), when it was all said and done. This is known colloquially as the Big Owe (a play on the stadium nickname, the Big O, for the shape of its opening). As of early 2006, Montreal has finished paying its Olympic debt. For the 1976 Olympics, Montreal expanded the Montreal Metro rapid mass transit system first built for Expo 67.

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The Olympics after Montreal

Following the news of the massive financial losses of the Montreal Games, few cities wished to host the Olympics. This was seen as a major threat to the future of the Olympic Games, and was not until the financially successful 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles that cities began to line up to be hosts again. The Los Angeles and Montreal Games are seen as examples of what to do and not to do when organizing the Olympics, and serve as object lessons to prospectant host cities. Since then, additional object lessons have been drawn from Atlanta in 1996 (the need to avoid commercialization) and Athens in 2004 (the need to organize and build to schedule).

The capital of the host province of the Olympics, Quebec City, was a candidate city of the 2002 Winter Olympics. They lost to Salt Lake City. The losses Montreal was hit with as a result of the 1976 games was a factor in Quebec City's loss.

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Reference

Template:Note {{cite web

| title = Africa and the XXIst Olympiad
| work = Olympic Review
| url = http://www.aafla.org/OlympicInformationCenter/OlympicReview/1976/ore109/ore109h.pdf
| year = 1976
| publisher = IOC
| accessdate = April 03
| accessyear = 2006
}}

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