'80 Olympic cheating

[parkerrclay]

http://www.statesman.com/sports/content ... oscow.html

Why didn't someone from the IOC or IAAF do something? This is as bad as drug cheating..maybe a little worse.

[jhc68]

Very interesting article. Makes you wonder about Olympic officials who decry "politics"in the games. Actually, I don't wonder about such complaints since I have viewed IOC people as world-class hypocrites for decades now.

[gh]

Re: '80 Olympic cheating

http://www.statesman.com/sports/content/sports/stories/other/07/20/0720dunawaymoscow.html

Why didn't someone from the IOC or IAAF do something? This is as bad as drug cheating..maybe a little worse.

All this well documented in T&FN at the time in a piece entitled "Kulibaba & The 40 Thieves"; a companion piece called "The Fake Entries" noted how the IAAF looked the other way when athletes without proper credentials were allowed into the meet.

Like a trio of 400 guys from Sierra Leone who in an amazing coincidence had all run 46.40. In the Games they ran 52.98, 50.80 and 49.68.

As to why there were so few American journalists there, the Austin paper's piece doesn't mention that as part of the retaliation for the boycott the Soviets killed the visas of about half the applicants (including everybody from T&FN).

[trackstar]

That was a great story. Makes me wonder about what's in store in Beijing.

[trig]

We were at the 1980 Olympics. It was clear to us in the stands that Chambers "foul" was not a foul. He definitely got hosed.

[Flumpy]

That was a great story. Makes me wonder about what's in store in Beijing.

It will be hard for them to anything like this. There will be camera's everywhere.

I doubt the TV coverage in 1980 was anything like it is now.

[Conor Dary]

Ah, such fond memories of those old villains, the Soviets and the 72 pole vault villain, Adriaan Paulen. I remember it all well. I think trig even wrote a letter to the editor at the time telling her version of that sordid tale.

Of course, let us not forget the shenanigans that the Italians pulled in '87. Changing the men's 10,000 heats to a final...doors magically opening up, long jump distances suddenly going up or down depending on one's nationality.

And who can forget 1908, when the Brits disqualified all the Americans in the 400, so their guy could win.

I wonder what the Chinese will come up with?

[Jake]

And who can forget 1908, when the Brits disqualified all the Americans in the 400, so their guy could win.

Only one American (Carpenter) was disqualified. The other two (Robbins, Taylor) were eligible to contest the re-run but boycotted it out of sympathy for their team-mate. The British runner, Wyndham Halswelle, therefore ran alone to take the gold medal.

[Conor Dary]

And who can forget 1908, when the Brits disqualified all the Americans in the 400, so their guy could win.

Only one American (Carpenter) was disqualified. The other two (Robbins, Taylor) were eligible to contest the re-run but boycotted it out of sympathy for their team-mate. The British runner, Wyndham Halswelle, therefore ran alone to take the gold medal.

Jake, you are of course, correct. I forgot that only Carpenter, who had won the first race, was dq'd. Wallechinsky has a lively story on the affair in his Olympic book.

[paulthefan]

did it have to end with an incoherent comment attributed to a Finnish business man? What a wreck-less slander against the russians. The USSR was not a russian ethnic/nationalist government.

[bambam]

[quote=Conor Dary]

And who can forget 1908, when the Brits disqualified all the Americans in the 400, so their guy could win.

Only one American (Carpenter) was disqualified. The other two (Robbins, Taylor) were eligible to contest the re-run but boycotted it out of sympathy for their team-mate. The British runner, Wyndham Halswelle, therefore ran alone to take the gold medal.

Jake, you are of course, correct. I forgot that only Carpenter, who had won the first race, was dq'd. Wallechinsky has a lively story on the affair in his Olympic book.[/quote:iscdmget]

And when doing the research for our book on the 1908 Olympics, we found a photo of the run-in that makes it look pretty obvious that Carpenter was correctly DQed - his footsteps in the last 50 metres go from lane 1 to lane 3 or so, pushing Halswelle out further and blocking him. No reason for the leader to be doing that.

[Rob]

"Well, you have to remember two things about the Russians. They are very patriotic, and very stupid."

That sentiment could just as well apply to another large super power...

In the TJ, the athlete I feel most sorry for was Saneyev, who should have won it and thereby equalled Oerter's 4 golds - and he was a Soviet.

And would the US 'reporter' have been any happier if the GDR had won both the 4x400 relays, instead of the USSR?

I'm surprised he didn't mention Göhr's 'frictionless blocks', which gave the USSR the women's 100m as well.

He seems to have some obsession with the presence of the USSR soldiers, who were there simply to ensure security and to prevent any repeat of Munich. Pity the same level of security wasn't achieved in Atlanta.

Of course they cheated, but to hark on about it 28 years later, it must be a slow news day amongst the American Statesman readership.

Or maybe an underhand way of drawing attention to what might happen in Beijing?

In any event, my recollections of Moscow are that it was one of the better Olympics in the last 40 years.

[trig]

I was not depressed in Moscow. In fact it is still my favorite Olympics. I took 2 years of Russian before we went. That fact made for a very enjoyable experience.

[jazzcyclist]

I'm surprised he didn't mention Göhr's 'frictionless blocks', which gave the USSR the women's 100m as well.

What are frictionless blocks?

[Rob]

Blocks that have been tampered with so they don't stay affixed to the track when the athlete pushes off at the start.

I've discussed this several times with Marlies, and the events that happened in Lane 8 of the women's 100m final. She remains adamant that the blocks would not stay fixed in the track, which she first noticed during her practice starts before the final, but when she reported it to the officials, she was just waved away. So although she had to be in contact with the blocks (for the false start mechanism), she couldn't apply any significant pressure at the start, for fear of losing her footing. This impaired her first half dozen strides when the gun fired, and consequently handed the title to Kondratyeva.

It's perhaps worth mentioning that in her 13 years as a world class sprinter, this was the only time she experienced anything underhand, and it was also the only time she ever complained.