Goodwill Games of 1986

The Event International sports competition founded by Ted Turner

Date July 4-20, 1986

Place Moscow, Russia

The Goodwill Games of 1986, the inaugural Goodwill Games, were the brainchild of Atlanta mogul Ted Turner, who sought a venue for increasing goodwill between the world’s superpowers. The competitions were to be aired on TBS, Turner’s Atlanta-based television superstation.

The Goodwill Games were organized as a response to the United States’ boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow and to the Soviet Union’s refusal to participate in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Despite the fact that Ted Turner bypassed the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) in his plans, he and the USOC later reached an agreement that future Goodwill Games should not become alternatives to the Olympic Games but should focus on U.S.-Soviet competition. Turner believed that the world’s top-notch athletes should be able to come together in an environment free of the political pressures that had marred the 1980 and 1984 Olympic Games. Eleven feverish months went into planning the event, in which athletes from the United States and the Soviet Union competed together on the same playing field in a major international multi-sport summer event.

In response to Turner’s initial proposal, the Soviets had suggested the event be limited only to American and Soviet athletes. Turner insisted, however, that other countries be allowed to participate. Following the Soviets’ agreement to this condition, Turner helped recruit the Western team, giving $6 million to the Athletics Congress, which, in turn, paid top American athletes $3,000 each to compete. Turner envisioned star athletes participating in track-and-field events, swimming, boxing, volleyball, and figure skating. The Soviets accommodated the games by building a huge studio for TBS visitors, doubling their police force, and posting banners that promoted sports, friendship, and peace. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev insisted that the message of the games was to be friendship, and Moscow received a huge influx of American visitors flocking to witness the event.

The Games

Following spectacular opening ceremonies, the Goodwill Games began. During these games, six world, eight continental, and ninety-one national records were broken. On the opening day, Soviet swimmer Vladimir Salnikov set a new record of 7 minutes 50.64 seconds in the 800-meter free style. Soviet pole vaulter Sergei Bubka broke his own world record with a vault of 19 feet 8¾ inches. In the women’s basketball finals, the United States, led by Cheryl Miller, defeated the Soviet team, ending a 152-game, twenty-eight-year Soviet winning streak. Brazil won the bronze medal.

In other notable events, American Jackie Joyner-Kersee compiled 7,148 points in the heptathlon to become the first American woman since Babe Didrikson Zaharias to hold the world record in a multiple-discipline event. Edwin Moses, two-time Olympic gold medalist, was awarded the Goodwill Games gold medal in the 400-meter hurdles. Sprinter Evelyn Ashford, the holder of the U.S. world record, won the 100-meter dash, and U.S. high jumper Doug Nordquist achieved a personal best of 7 feet 8 inches to secure his first win over Soviet world-record holder Igor Paklin.

In the cycling competition, new world records were set by Michael Hubner of the German Democratic Republic at 10.2444 and Erika Salumae of the Soviet Union at 11.489. Meanwhile, led by Yuri Korolev and Yelena Shushunova, the Soviet Union swept the gold medals in both the individual and team gymnastics competitions. The rhythmic gymnastics event was won by Bianka Dittrich of the German Democratic Republic. In the boxing competition, the Soviet Union won eleven of the twelve gold medals, with the United States’ Arthur Johnson being the only non-Soviet to win a gold medal.

The 1986 Goodwill Games featured thirty-five hundred athletes from seventy-nine countries who, in an invitational format, participated in eighteen sports. Turner’s superstation in Atlanta, along with other outlets, beamed 129 hours of coverage to American households. The games continued in later years, beginning with the 1990 Goodwill Games in Seattle, Washington. Staged more for diplomatic than for financial reasons, however, the games never succeeded financially. The 1986 games lost $26 million, setting a precedent that only continued until the event was finally terminated in 2001.

Impact

Despite Turner’s loss of money, he continued to stage Goodwill Games for the remainder of the century, maintaining that his project was not about money. A longtime student of history, Turner envisioned himself working outside official networks and accomplishing something of importance. He maintained that his Goodwill Games provided a fresh, exciting meeting ground for athletes, free of political pressure, at which they could measure themselves against one another in a major international sports competition. The games also evolved into charitable ventures, supporting an organization called “Uniting the World’s Best” that provided assistance to children and mothers in developing countries through contributions to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.

Bibliography

Goldberg, Robert, and Gerald Jay Goldberg. Citizen Turner: The Wild Rise of an American Tycoon. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1995. Interesting look at the more personal aspects of Ted Turner’s life.

Harrington, Geri. Jackie Joyner Kersee. New York: Chelsea House, 1995. Fascinating story of the gifted athlete who suffered from asthma, was prevented by the Olympics Committee from taking her prescribed medication, and yet became a four-time Olympic champion.

Senn, Alfred E. Power, Politics, and the Olympic Games. Idaho: Human Kinetics, 1999. Account of the Olympic Games since their beginning in 1896 and the political and social issues surrounding them.