Word: olympiad
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Amid pomp and protest, the limping Olympiad takes...
Nonetheless, the 22nd Olympiad promised to be a tarnished affair. As of last week, an estimated 31 countries, including Canada, Japan, West Germany, China and Kenya, were heeding the Carter Administration's call for a boycott to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. By the host country's count, 83 nations will participate. The boycott has taken the luster off such men's sports as track, basketball, boxing and gymnastics; the competition in swimming, yachting, field hockey, archery and equestrian events has become almost meaningless. Even so, the countries coming to Moscow won about...
After the murder of eleven Israeli athletes at Munich in 1972, the African boycott in 1976 and the current one, no one knows what problems will beset the 23rd Olympiad. But U.S. athletes, bitterly disappointed at being sidelined in 1980, are already taking aim at 1984. "Just you wait," says Tuppeny. "We've got some kids coming along who are going to be fantastic...
...instruction and awards. Designed for the masses, the Soviet sports machine has nonetheless produced an athletic elite of awesome proportions, with all the international political benefits that implies. Just as do many other countries, the U.S.S.R. views sport as a useful political weapon. Since participating in its first modern Olympiad in 1952 in Helsinki, the Soviet Union has won 685 medals in the Summer Games-more than any other nation during those years (the U.S., in second place, has collected 603). The Kremlin considered this year's Games in Moscow-the first ever held in a Communist nation...
...Olympic gold could be mined from handball-a sport not seriously pursued in the Soviet Union. Word went out to the local sports schools to set up crash training programs for gandbolisty. "We are proud of such 'interference,' " said Sergei Pavlov, Minister of Sports. At the first Olympiad after that decision, in Montreal in 1976, Soviet players entered both the men's and women's handball matches and walked away with gold medals...