Word: olympiades
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Almost predictably, the Games of the XXI Olympiad ended as they began -with sermons, squabbles and a threat to withdraw. Charging Canada with "planned provocation," Soviet officials said they might boycott the weekend events if a 17-year-old Russian diver who defected on Thursday was not returned. Meanwhile America's Dwight Stones, the world-record-holding high jumper known as "the Mouth with Legs," was quoted as saying that French Canadians were "rude, discourteous and ignorant." Before slipping to third place in the Montreal rain, Stones, who made public apology by donning an I LOVE FRENCH CANADIANS...
Seven minutes of commercials each hour is a small price to pay for seeing the Olympics "up close and personal," to borrow ABC'S own phrase. Yet this Olympiad saw many advertisers straining to link their products to the noblest ideals of athletic competition-and at a staggering cost. The result was a kind of electronic jock itch. Schlitz spent $4.5 million to air its effective series of ads. Joe Namath huddled with an assortment of international machos, trying to give the impression that Brut deserved a seat in the United Nations. McDonald's, Burger King and Pizza...
...ritual of most sports. Baseball fans throw their allegiance behind teams for no other reason than that they play home games in their city. College alumni support their old school's football teams. Even the Greeks of the ancient Olympic games, the ideal for organizers of the modern Olympiad, rooted for representatives of their regions...
...Olympiad of contradictions. There she stands, poised on the balance beam-a 4-in. strip of spruce, 16½ ft. long, 4 ft. above the padded flooring. The palms of her hands are coated with gymnasts' chalk that is as white as her uniform, as white as her face. She is an infinitely solemn wisp of a girl, 4 ft. 11 in. tall, a mere 86 Ibs.; dark circles above her cheeks; a Kean-eyed elf. Then, with no more strain than it would take to raise a hand to a friend, she is airborne: a backflip, landing...
From the opening days of the XXI Olympiad, the athletes performed so stunningly that the scorekeeping computers had to be reprogrammed to process the data of perfection. Shattering eight world records in their first nine finals, East Germany's women and America's men proved themselves the greatest swimmers the world has seen since mankind's forebears forsook the primeval ooze. In one 27-minute period, East Germany's incomparable Kornelia Ender, 17, won two gold medals. Meanwhile the U.S. men obliterated all opposition; their totals in the first five days' nine events: nine golds...