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1976 Summer Olympics

Games of the XXI Olympiad
Nations participating	92
Athletes participating	6,028 (4,781 men, 1,247 women)
Events	198 in 21 sports
Opening ceremony	July 17, 1976
Closing ceremony	August 1, 1976
Officially opened by	Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada
Athlete's Oath	Pierre St.-Jean
Judge's Oath	Maurice Fauget
Olympic Torch	Stéphane Préfontaine and Sandra Henderson

The 1976 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXI Olympiad, were held in 1976 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. In the bid to organise the Olympics, Montreal defeated Moscow and Los Angeles, which would organise the 1980 and 1984 Olympics.

Highlights

• In a protest to a tour of South Africa by the New Zealand rugby team, Tanzania led a boycott of 22 African nations as the IOC refused to bar the New Zealand team. Some of the nations had already participated however, as the teams only withdrew after the first day.
• Following the Munich massacre, high security was part of the scene for these games.
• The organisation of the Olympics turned out bad financially for Montreal, as the city remained faced with 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 Olympic Flame was electronically transmitted from Athens to Ottawa. From there, it was carried by hand to Montreal. Following a rainstorm that doused the Olympic flame a few days after the opening of the games, 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 3 gold medals in 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 10000 m and finished 5th in the marathon, thereby failing to equal Emil Zátopek 1952 achievements.
• Boris Onischenko, a member of the Soviet Union's modern pentathlon team, was disqualified after he had rigged his épée to register a hit when there wasn't one.
• Women's events were introduced in basketball, handball and rowing.
• Five American boxers, including 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.
• The Canadian field hockey team wins gold on goals scored by Arlo Grayson, Philip Nowicki, Adam Kerr, and Simon Tipler.

Medals awarded

See the medal winners, ordered by sport:

Archery Athletics Basketball Boxing Canoeing Cycling Diving Equestrianism Fencing Football Gymnastics Handball

Hockey Judo Modern Pentathlon Rowing Shooting Swimming Volleyball Water Polo Weightlifting Wrestling 1976 Summer Olympics medal count) 1976 Summer Olympics medal count Pos Country Gold Silver Bronze Total 1 USSR 49 41 35 125 2 East Germany (GDR) 40 25 25 90 3 United States 34 35 25 94 4 West Germany (FRG) 10 12 17 39 5 Japan 9 6 10 25 6 Poland 7 6 13 26 7 Bulgaria 6 9 7 22 8 Cuba 6 4 3 13 9 Romania 4 9 14 27 10 Hungary 4 5 13 22 [Top] Montreal [Top] The Olympics in Canada 1976 was the first time Canada hosted the Olympics, it has subsequently hosted the Olympics twice more, at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, and the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. In a coincidence, Toronto hosted the 1976 Summer Paralympics. [Top] The Olympics in Montreal Montreal saw the 1976 games as a chance to build on its world prestige that was first rewarded with a World's Fair on Canada's centennial. It used the opportunity to expand its rapid mass transit system (subway) first built for Expo '67, the Metro. With the Olympic massacre from the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich on everyone's minds, security was topflight for the 1976 games. Montreal 1976 pointed the way to the future in Olympic security, which was further increased for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. 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. 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. As of 2004, Montreal is still paying off the debt, and the Montreal Olympic Stadium (currently the occasional home of Major League Baseball's Montreal Expos) is still not complete, and still under construction, needing a new roof, as previous designs have proved inadequate for the climate. [Top] The Olympics after Montreal With the massive losses at Montreal, 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 sucessful 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles that cities began to line up to be hosts again. 1984 and 1976 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. However, 2004 (Athens) and 1996 (Atlanta) are also object lessons, in the need to organize and build to schedule; and the need to not be crass marketteers, respectively. [Top] See also 1976 Summer Paralympics International Olympic Committee WikiProject Sports Olympics IOC country codes 1976 in Canada [Top]   View Live Article   This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License