Word: sovietism
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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When the competition began later that afternoon, another typically Soviet spectacle took place. In a heat of the 400-meter hurdles, the giant electronic scoreboard in Lenin Stadium flashed word that Edwin Moses of the U.S., the world's best in the event, would be wearing No. 825 and running in Lane 2. Trouble was Moses was at a track meet in Italy. The real No. 825, who belly-flopped at the last hurdle ,was Stan Vinson, an American middle-distance runner competing in the hurdles for the first time...
...22nd Olympiad, displaying, as one visiting U S sportswnter unkindly put it, "the Russian proclivity for excelling at pomp and fouling up circumstance." Spartakiad's first week did produce scores of minor organizational glitches that need to be ironed before next year. But to their credit the Soviets seemed obsessively determined to correct their mistakes and make the most impressive Olympiad yet. Spartakiad features 10,000 Soviet athletes, sifted from nearly 100 million entrants over two years of eliminations and-for the first time-2,500 foreign competitors. The games were organized so that the Soviets have a better...
...Olympics, though several important 1980 facilities are not yet in operation. The official Olympic symbol, a cute bear cub named Misha, made its debut. With only a handful of Western tourists in Moscow last week, the city's life-support systems were not severely tested. But Soviet patience was, largely by Western journalists complaining about stalled visas, confusing event schedules and scoreboards that used the Cyrillic alphabet. Fed up, a Soviet official denied that Spartakiad was a "dress rehearsal" for the Olympics, just as another official was proclaiming it such...
Construction began in the spring of 1977 and has proceeded almost on schedule, despite an unusually cold winter and the usual bureaucratic and planning snags. Specialists have been recruited from all over the Soviet Union, thousands of Young Communist League volunteers have taken up shovels to help out, and materials and manpower have been diverted from non-Olympic projects. Construction battalions from the Soviet army are working at many sites...
Unofficial estimates put construction costs at about $375 million, or less than half the totals for both Munich and Montreal. While refusing to give an official cost estimate, the Soviet government does say that income from sports lotteries, tour ism, commemorative stamp sales, souvenirs and television rights should more than cover building costs. The Soviets also point out that all the new Olympic facil ities will be put to good use after the games. The Olympic Village (see box), for example, will become a housing project for 12,000 lucky citizens. Indeed, the 1980 Olympics will be not just...