1980 Winter Olympics

XIII. winter Olympics

Venue:	Lake Placid ( United States )
Stadion:	Lake Placid Equestrian Stadium
Opening ceremony:	February 13, 1980
Closing ceremony:	February 24, 1980
Opened by:	Walter Mondale (Vice President of the USA)
Olympic oath :	Eric Heiden (athlete) Richard McDermott (referee)
Disciplines:	10 (6 sports)
Competitions:	38
Countries:	37
Athletes:	1,072, of which 232 women
← Innsbruck 1976
Sarajevo 1984 →

Medal table
space	country	G	S.	B.	Ges.
1	Soviet Union	10	6th	6th	22nd
2	GDR	9	7th	7th	23
3	United States	6th	4th	2	12
4th	Austria	3	2	2	7th
5	Sweden	3	0	1	4th
6th	Liechtenstein	2	2	0	4th
7th	Finland	1	5	3	9
8th	Norway	1	3	6th	10
9	Netherlands	1	2	1	4th
10	Switzerland	1	1	3	5
...	...	...	...	...	...
12	BR Germany	-	2	3	5
Complete medal table

The 1980 Winter Olympics (also called the XIII Winter Olympics ) were held from February 13 to 24, 1980 in Lake Placid , USA . It was the third Winter Olympics in the USA and the second in Lake Placid after 1932 .

poll

The vote took place at the 74th IOC session (October 23, 1974 in Vienna ). Vancouver , Canada, the only remaining other candidate for these Winter Games (the other applicants, Banff , Oslo , Chamonix and Garmisch-Partenkirchen , had said goodbye to their intentions much earlier), had withdrawn its application for financial reasons before the vote.

Sports facilities

Map of sports facilities

The opening ceremony was held in the Lake Placid Equestrian Stadium .

As in the 1932 games, the ice hockey games took place in the Olympic Center .

The alpine skiing competitions were held in Whiteface Mountain, the bobsleigh and luge disciplines on the Mount Van Hoevenberg Olympic bobsleigh track .

The figure skating took place at the Olympic Field House.

Cross-country skiers, biathletes and Nordic combined athletes started in the Cascade Cross Country Ski Center, the ski jumps were called Olympic Ski Jumps .

The speed skating competitions were held at the James B. Sheffield Olympic Skating Rink .

mascot

The mascot of the games was " Roni ", a raccoon. The rings on the animal's face are reminiscent of the goggles and masks that are worn by many winter sports athletes during a competition.

Highlights

In front of a home crowd, the US ice hockey team unexpectedly won a gold medal. A sensational victory over the USSR ( Miracle on Ice ) made this possible, but this match was not a final game, because there was a final round. In the final game, the US amateurs faced Finland and won this game too.

media

• The TV broadcast directly to 40 countries around the world
• As for "Olympia on ORF ", the TV broadcast all competitions on "FS 1", "Ö3" was responsible for the current radio reporting and every morning brought an "Olympia alarm clock" from 7:15 to in its morning program "Ö3-Wecker" 7:20 h.

Sporting expectations and achievements

• The GDR won the most medals (23), but in the usual medal tables, which took into account the higher number of gold medals, the Soviet Union was ten gold medals ahead of the GDR nine gold medals.
• The medal balance of the Federal Republic of Germany remained below expectations compared to previous winter games, mainly due to the lack of a gold medal, and naturally led to corresponding comments in the (print) media.
• The Austrian Olympic Committee ( ÖOC ) sent 41 active participants, 21 supervisors and four officials (including President Kurt Heller ), of which 13 men and 5 women came from the ski association. A total of 5 medals were sought. The swearing-in by Federal President Rudolf Kirchschläger took place on January 29th. The expenses of the ÖOC amounted to 2.5 million schillings, the costs of clothing the Olympic team (2 million S) were borne by the Federal Chamber of Commerce.
• The men's 15 km cross-country skiing with winner Thomas Wassberg was the most dramatic competition of the games, as Juha Mieto , who came second, was only a hundredth of a second behind (the closest distance to a victory in an Olympic cross-country skiing event). As a result, the FIS set the timing at tenths of a second from this point on.

Other special events

• The People's Republic of China took part in the Winter Olympic Games for the first time after the IOC had not approved or requested the previous Chinese representative, Taiwan (Formosa), that the national Taiwanese Olympic Committee must change its name and adopt a new flag and a new anthem. It was also the premiere at the Winter Games for Costa Rica, while Cyprus was at the Olympic Games for the first time
• Although President Jimmy Carter had shortly before announced the boycott of US athletes at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow , the Soviet Union and its socialist brother countries were represented in Lake Placid
• These were the first Winter Olympics to use artificial snow
• A second group of Soviet athletes had landed in an Aeroflot machine with 134 passengers and 11 crew members at New York's Kennedy Airport, although it had been agreed that Soviet planes would land at Dulles Airport in Washington (these planes will not be at Kennedy Airport dispatched). This meant a delay for the athletes concerned.

Outstanding athletes

• Eric Heiden (USA) won all five speed skating competitions, breaking the Olympic record in each case and the world record on the 10,000 meter course.
• Hanni Wenzel ( Liechtenstein ) won two gold and one silver medal in the three alpine ski competitions and also won the combined world championship gold medal.
• Ulrich Wehling (GDR) in Nordic Combined and Irina Rodnina (URS) in figure skating won Olympic gold medals in their sports for the third time in a row.
• Alexander Tichonow (URS) won the fourth gold medal in a row with the biathlon relay after 1968 , 1972 and 1976 .

Attendees

Europe (791 athletes from 25 nations)
Andorra  (3)  Belgium  (2)  Bulgaria  (8)  GDR  (53)  Federal Republic of Germany  (80)  Finland  (52)  France  (22)  Greece  (3)  Great Britain  (48)	Iceland  (6)  Italy  (46)  Yugoslavia  (15)  Liechtenstein  (7)  Netherlands  (29)  Norway  (64)  Austria  (43)  Poland  (30)  Romania  (35)	Sweden  (61)  Switzerland  (44)  Soviet Union  (86)  Spain  (8)  Czechoslovakia  (41)  Hungary  (2)  Cyprus *  (3)
America (177 athletes from 5 nations)
Argentina  (13)  Bolivia  (3)	Costa Rica *  (1)  Canada  (59)	United States  (101)
Asia (90 athletes from 5 nations)
China, People's Republic *  (24)  Japan  (50)	Korea, Republic of  (10)  Lebanon  (3)	Mongolia  (3)
Oceania (14 athletes from 2 nations)
Australia  (9)	New Zealand  (5)
(Number of athletes) * Participation in winter games for the first time

A total of 1072 athletes from 37 countries took part in the competitions. That was 189 fewer than at the games in Innsbruck .

As in the two previous Winter Games, no athlete from Africa took part. Cyprus participated for the first time; for Costa Rica and the People's Republic of China it was the debut at the Winter Olympics.

Competition program

38 competitions (24 for men, 12 for women and 2 mixed competitions) in 6 sports / 10 disciplines were held. There was only one change in the Olympic program compared to Innsbruck in 1976 - in the biathlon the 10 km sprint for men was added. The number of sports / disciplines remained the same.

Olympic sports / disciplines

• Biathlon total (3) = men (3)
• Bob total (2) = men (2)
• Ice hockey total (1) = men (1)
• Ice skating
  • Figure skating total (4) = men (1) / women (1) / mixed (2)
  • Speed ​​skating total (9) = men (5) / women (4)
• Luge total (3) = men (2) / women (1)
• Skiing
  • Alpine skiing total (6) = men (3) / women (3)
  • Nordic skiing
    • Nordic combined total (1) = men (1)
    • Cross-country skiing total (7) = men (4) / women (3)
    • Ski jumping total (2) = men (2)

Number of competitions in brackets

Time schedule

Time schedule
discipline			Tuesday 12	Wed. 13.	Thursday 14.	Fri. 15.	Sat 16.	Sun. 17.	Mon. 18.	Tuesday 19.	Wed. 20.	Thursday 21.	Fr. 22.	Sat. 23.	Sun. 24.	Decision- disk- applications
			February
Opening ceremony
biathlon							1			1			1			3
bob							1								1	2
ice Hockey															1	1
Ice skating	figure skating							1		1		1		1		4th
	Speed ​​skating				1	2	1	1		1	1	1		1		9
Luge							2			1						3
Skiing	Alpine skiing				1			1		1		1	1	1		6th
	Nordic skiing	Nordic combination								1						1
		Cross-country skiing			1	1		1	1		1	1		1		7th
		Ski jumping						1						1		2
Closing ceremony
decisions					3	3	5	5	1	6th	2	4th	2	5	2	38
			Tuesday 12	Wed. 13.	Thursday 14.	Fri. 15.	Sat 16.	Sun. 17.	Mon. 18.	Tuesday 19.	Wed. 20.	Thursday 21.	Fr. 22.	Sat. 23.	Sun. 24.
			February

Color legend

Opening ceremony

Competition day (no decisions)

Competition day (x decisions)

Exhibition running (figure skating gala)

Closing ceremony

safety

More than 70 FBI agents and 700 New York state police officers were prepared for all sorts of events in training months beforehand, many even had to learn to ski well so that they - as monitors on the ski slopes - could move quickly. In the training courses, additional skills (locomotion with ski boots, shooting from the skis) were learned and kidnapping cases and terrorist attacks were played out. 1000 people were called up for the Olympic village , with electronic aids being available, because the fence and the edge of the forest were protected against infrared and heat. German shepherds were used in US police services to control the trunk of arriving people. However, some teams had rented comfortable houses outside the Olympic village - that is why the German team had brought a specialist from the anti-terrorist unit and a detective with them to Lake Placid. Not all Austrian athletes (Alpine, Springer) lived in the village either , which caused them problems with regard to the food supply. The distance between their accommodations and the kitchen in the village was too great to drive there, and they found the menu too American and unappealing. They therefore became self-sufficient.

other remarks

• The games were officially opened by US Vice President Walter Mondale . The last torchbearer was the American team doctor Charles Morgan Kerr. The US speed skater Eric Heiden and the US speed skating referee Terry Mc Dermott took the Olympic oath .
• The Austrian electronics trade had already sold 50% more television sets than usual in the last weeks before the Olympics; However, it was limited that the trend towards second devices was also responsible for this.
• The organizer put the central computer to an endurance test in Austin at the beginning of November ; it was tested for two days under peak loads in order to avoid breakdowns in an emergency
• There were problems for the private room rental companies in Lake Placid and the five surrounding communities. While hotels and motels have long been fully booked, the demand for this category has been limited. Some tried to counteract this by offering additional tickets for the Olympic competitions. The uncertain situation had an impact on the entire housing market in Lake Placid and the surrounding area, as many tenants had been thrown in front of the door in anticipation of wealthy Olympic guests
• There were around 6,000 volunteers who signed up for board and lodging (Spartan sleeping place) as "brownies" in order to see the games up close.
• A comparison with the 1932 Games was that it cost four million US dollars and 330 athletes took part. Now it's 600 million US dollars, 1,800 athletes and approximately the same number of supervisors are taking part, and 3,200 journalists from all over the world were accredited.

Web links

Commons : 1980 Winter Olympics  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Side of the IOC to the Winter Games of 1980 (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ "Only Lake Placid" . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna October 6, 1974, p. 12 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
2. ↑ When the miracle happened on the ice
3. ↑ “Maximum 5 medals!” In “Volkszeitung Kärnten” No. 23 of January 29, 1980, page 28
4. ^ "Austria in the future an 'Olympic country'?" In "Volkszeitung Kärnten" No. 24 of January 30, 1980, page 1
5. ↑ top right: «Taiwan criticizes IOC» . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna October 27, 1979, p. 12 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
6. ^ Columns 2 and 3, middle: "Compulsory break for Soviet athletes" . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna February 12, 1980, p. 10 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
7. ↑ «FBI learns new ski technology» . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna January 11, 1980, p. 16 ( Arbeiter-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
8. ^ "Five rings discreetly secured" in "Salzburger Nachrichten" of February 11, 1980, page 13; POS .: bottom left
9. ^ "Become self-sufficient" in "Salzburger Nachrichten" of February 11, 1980, page 13; POS .: columns 4 and 5
10. ^ "Olympic winners: TV dealers" . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna February 15, 1980, p. 09 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
11. ↑ Center right: "Computer rehearsing on February 20" . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna November 7, 1979, p. 13 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
12. ↑ «Rooms are getting cheaper now» . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna November 20, 1979, p. 8 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
13. ^ "Olympia for food and lodging" . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna January 14, 1980, p. 12 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
14. ↑ Column 5, a little lower: "Budget expansion" . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna February 18, 1980, p. 9 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).