26 August 1972. The 20th Olympics started in Berlin, the capital of Germany. Germany had got the hosting rights of the Olympics after 36 years. It did not want any disturbance. Strict arrangements were also made for the security of the players. Security personnel in the stadium were dressed in ordinary clothes.
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This arrangement suffered a major breach on the 11th day of the event, when terrorists entered the Olympic Village and took 11 Israeli players hostage.
In the fourth episode of the series ‘Olympic Tales’, such incidents were discussed which created fear in the Olympic event…
11 Israeli athletes killed in Munich Olympics
5 September 1972, the 11th day of the Munich Olympics. At 4:30 in the morning, eight terrorists from the Palestinian militant organization Black September entered the Olympic Village by scaling the walls. Disguised as athletes, the terrorists went straight to the area where the Israeli athletes were staying. They gathered all the athletes at gunpoint.
During this time, wrestler Moshe Weinberg and weightlifter Yosef Romano resisted the terrorists and were shot dead. The remaining 9 people were still in the custody of the terrorists.
German police personnel deployed outside the apartment of Israeli athletes.
After capturing the players, the terrorists put forth a demand before the Israeli government that 200 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli jails and two terrorists imprisoned in Western Germany be released. The terrorists also demanded an airplane to transport themselves to a safe place in the Middle East. The demands were met by 10 pm.
Blood was found spilled in the Israeli players’ apartment after the terrorists entered it.
At 10:30 pm, the terrorists, with their hands and feet blindfolded, took the athletes in two helicopters to the Furstenfeldbruck airbase 25 km away. Where the German police was hiding and keeping an eye on the terrorists.
Two terrorists came down to inspect the runway and they got a hint of the presence of German police there. The terrorists shouted about this to their other comrades. Meanwhile, firing started from the police side. Some terrorists and police officers were killed in the firing.
The surviving terrorists and police officers hid in safe places, but the players tied together were trapped in the middle. Meanwhile, the terrorists shot out the floodlights and continued firing. At midnight a German officer announced on TV that all the terrorists had been killed and the athletes had been freed, but this announcement was made in a hurry.
The helicopter in which the players were brought, burnt after the terrorist attack.
Just after midnight, a terrorist threw a grenade at a helicopter, killing four Israeli athletes. Another terrorist fired bullets at the second helicopter, killing the remaining five athletes. The firing stopped around 12:30 at night. 11 Israeli athletes, a German policeman and five terrorists were killed. Somehow, three terrorists were captured.
The next day the Olympic Games were suspended for 24 hours to pay tribute to the dead athletes. The games then resumed, but the Israeli athletes had returned to their country.
Front page of The Sun newspaper the day after the attack.
When 200 students protesting the Olympics were killed in Mexico
Before 1972, the 1968 Olympics had been marred by blood. On 2 October 1968, just ten days before the opening ceremony of the Olympics, thousands of students gathered at a place called Tlatelolco Plaza in Mexico City. The students demanded that the government should use the money for the welfare of the country and its people instead of spending it on the Olympics.
The students’ protest was peaceful, but the Mexican government had something else in mind. More than 300 government snipers were stationed on the rooftops around the plaza. Suddenly the snipers took aim and started firing at the students. In the next few minutes, the Tlatelolco Plaza was filled with 200-300 dead bodies. Thousands of people were also injured in the incident.
Monument to the murdered Mexican students on Tlatelolco Plaza.
The impact of this massacre was also seen in the Olympic Games that began 10 days later. Many players paid tribute to the dead in their own way. In return, they had to face many types of sanctions. After the bloody games of 1968 and 1972, a period of boycott in the Olympics began.
When New Zealand’s rugby team forced African countries to withdraw players
In 1976, the Olympics were to be held in Montreal, France. Just a day before the opening ceremony of the event, more than 30 African and Arab countries called back their players due to apartheid. Due to this, players had to be declared winners in many events without playing. In the absence of teams, the organizers had to refund the ticket money to the spectators.
Why did African countries decide to withdraw from the Olympics?
In fact, in 1976, the New Zealand rugby team visited South Africa, which had made laws against apartheid. However, rugby was not a part of the Olympics. A month before the event, the Soweto massacre took place in the same Africa, in which the South African police killed hundreds of black people who were protesting against apartheid.
Kenyan athletes at the airport while returning from the 1976 Olympics.
The countries boycotting the Olympics were demanding that New Zealand be banned from the Olympics, considering it a supporter of South Africa. However, the demand was not met, due to which these countries called back their players. Whereas due to apartheid, South Africa had to face a ban from the Olympics from 1964 to 1992.
However, apart from this boycott, there were many bitter memories associated with the 1976 Olympics. After this event, Canada was plunged into a debt of 1.6 billion Canadian dollars. It took many years to recover from this, but the Olympics could not recover quickly from its boycott trend. This remained the same for the next two events.
Afghanistan attacked, 60 countries left Moscow Olympics
On 24 December 1979, just a day before Christmas, the Soviet Union began landing troops from airplanes in the cities of its neighbouring country Afghanistan. Before the Afghan government could understand anything, Soviet troops declared war from the border as well.
In the next few days, the army reached the Afghan Rashtrapati Bhavan and poisoned and killed all the ministers including the President. Babrak Karmal was made a puppet ruler on behalf of the Soviets after a coup in Afghanistan. From here began the civil war in Afghanistan which lasted for the next decade.
Photo of the opening ceremony of the Moscow Olympics 1980.
The Soviet Union had to suffer the consequences of its military intervention in Afghanistan in the 1980 Olympics. It was organized in Moscow, the capital of the USSR, but these games had to face a massive boycott, the reason for which was the Soviet-Afghan War.
Jimmy Carter, the then President of America, a staunch opponent of the Soviet Union, led this boycott trend. More than 60 countries participated in this boycott against the Soviet Union’s Afghan attack. Carter also proposed to the IOC to make Greece the permanent host of the Olympics so that there is no politics regarding the event, but the IOC rejected the proposal.
During the Games, players and sports had to face many restrictions. The medal tally of the 1980 Olympics was also the most unbalanced since the 1904 Games.
In 1984, USSR took revenge, 14 countries did not send players to the Olympics
USSR took revenge for the 1980 boycott in the 1984 Olympics. This time the event was to be held in Los Angeles. A few months before the games began, USSR accused America of inciting politics through sports. It refused to send Soviet Union players to Los Angeles, saying that the lives of its players were in danger.
Like the Soviet Union, 13 other countries refused to send their athletes to the 1984 Olympics. Like the previous time, this time too the boycott had an impact on the medal tally and the competition.
News of the Soviet Union leaving the Olympics.
In 1988, the Olympic Games were played in Seoul, the capital of South Korea. These games also struggled with politics and boycotts. The impact of the June Democratic Struggle going on in South Korea in the 80s was also seen on the Olympics.
During this time, South Korea was also battling a war with North Korea. North Korea demanded Olympic co-hosting from the IOC, which was rejected. In return, North Korea boycotted the Olympics in which it got support from countries like Cuba and Ethiopia. However, these incidents did not have much impact on the games.
Things started to get better with the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. The Cold War ended in 1991, bringing calm to the turbulent world politics. A united Germany returned to power in 1992. South Africa also returned to power after ending apartheid and establishing democracy, but another attack awaited the Olympics before the new century.
A bomb blast occurred some distance away from the stadium in the 1996 Olympics
The 1996 Olympic Games were held in Georgia. On 27 July 1996, an explosion took place at a music concert being held at the Centennial Olympic Park, a short distance from the Olympic Stadium. In which 2 people died. While more than 100 people were injured.
The bomb used in the attack was a handmade pipe bomb which was made at home and was kept in a bag and planted among the people. Before the incident, the attacker had also called the police twice and warned them about the blast.
Before and after photos of the 1996 Atlanta bombing.
In the wake of 1972, the bomb blasts increased the governments’ concerns. However, the US government continued with the games while ensuring security. After this incident, many more such incidents were seen in the US.
In 2003, Atlanta blast mastermind Eric Rudolph was caught. After which it was revealed that Rudolph had carried out these attacks because of America’s abortion law. In 2005, he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
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In the fifth and last episode of the Olympic series, we will know how the tradition of sending players to the Olympics started in India? What was the Olympic connection between Sachin and Kambli…
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