Olympic Games of 1972

The Event The 1972 staging of winter and summer international athletic competitions, held every four years

Date Winter Games, February 3-13, 1972; Summer Games, August 26-September 11, 1972

Place Winter Games, Sapporo, Japan; Summer Games, Munich, West Germany

While featuring several record-breaking performances of notable international athletes, the Olympic Games of 1972 were mired in controversy surrounding issues of amateurism and sportsmanship. The Summer Games gained unfortunate infamy following the terrorist acts committed by the Palestinian Black September group.

The eleventh Winter Olympic Games featured 1,006 competing athletes—205 women and 801 men—who represented thirty-five nations. The United States had the largest contingent with 118 athletes—91 men and 27 women. The Games of Sapporo were the first to be held outside Europe or the United States. For the Winter Games, American broadcast rights were $6.4 million compared with the $2.5 million for the 1968 Grenoble, France, Games.

Controversy of Amateurism

Three days prior to the commencement of the Games in Sapporo, retiring president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Avery Brundage, threatened to disqualify forty alpine skiers for professionalism. On the average, alpine skiers were able to draw salaries of fifty thousand dollars a year by representing the trademarks associated with the skiing industry. Brundage had a strong disapproval of athletes using the Games as a means to advertise commercial interests of the sports industry. In 1968, during the Grenoble Games in France, Brundage ordered that any photographs taken of skiers would be without the presence of any ski manufacturers’ trademarks.

As a response to Brundage’s threat, members of the Federation Internationale de Ski (FIS) threatened to boycott the 1972 Olympics. Without the main attraction of alpine skiing, the Olympics would be a disaster. The executive committee of the IOC decided to make an example out of the sport’s most commercialized star, Karl Schranz, voting 28-14 to disqualify him. Schranz had earned more than fifty thousand dollars annually by testing ski equipment. Schranz was the most outspoken critic of Brundage and the hypocrisy of amateurism in the Olympics. He criticized Brundage for not going after the Soviet bloc nations and their state-sponsored Olympic athletes. Ultimately, Schranz became the scapegoat for this controversy, although he urged his fellow alpine skiers not to boycott. He ended his skiing career never having won an Olympic gold medal.

The question of amateurism came under further protest when Canada refused to send a hockey team to the Olympics. Canadian officials protested the use of “professional amateurs” by Soviet bloc nations.

Medal Counts and Notable Athletes

The United States won a total of eight medals: three gold, two silver, and three bronze. American women athletes captured seven medals, while the American men captured one medal, the silver in ice hockey. Twenty-year-old Dianne Holum from Northbrook, Illinois, won the 1,500-meter ice skating event, thereby setting an Olympic record. This was the first Olympic ice skating event won by an American woman. Holum would go on to win the silver medal in the 3,000-meter ice skating event. Sixteen-year-old Anne Henning, also from Northbrook, Illinois, won the 500-meter sprint in speed skating. Twenty-one-year-old Barbara Cochran captured the third gold medal won by Americans at these Olympics, this time in the slalom. It was the first gold medal for any American in alpine skiing in twenty years.

The sport heroes of the Olympics were Ard Schenk of Holland, who won three gold medals in speed skating, and Galina Kulacova of the Soviet Union, who captured three gold medals in cross-country skiing. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the Olympics was the performance of alpine skier Francisco Ochoa of Spain, who won the gold medal in the slalom—the first Spaniard to win a gold medal in the Winter Olympic Games. In addition, Japan made a clean sweep of the 70-meter ski jump. The gold medal won by Yukio Kasaya in this event was the first gold medal won by Japan in the Winter Games; the only medal that the country had won previously in the Winter Games was a silver medal in 1956.

Summer Olympics

The 1972 Summer Olympic Games were attended by a total of 7,123 athletes—6,065 male and 1,058 women—the most of any previous Olympic Games. The Olympic program was expanded to twenty-one sports with the addition of archery, team handball, and judo for a total of 195 events. Broadcasting rights for the Games in the United States were set at $7.5 million, an increase of $4 million from the 1968 Mexico City Games.

In preparation for the Games, the West German government invested more than $640 million to construct new sports stadiums, swimming pools, and sports halls. In addition, improvements were made at airports, subways, and cultural centers with the intention to showcase West Germany and stimulate tourism.

Terrorism at the Games

Unfortunately, organizers of the twentieth Olympiad never anticipated the horrific terrorist event that would plague their Olympics. In the early morning of September 5, eight members of the Palestinian Black September terrorist organization broke into the Munich Olympic Village, executed two Israeli athletes, and took nine Israeli athletes hostage. By 5:30 a.m., the leader of the organization made the group’s demands: the release of two hundred Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails and the provision of an airliner to provide passage to Egypt. Twenty-three hours later, as the terrorists boarded a plane, a shootout between German police and the terrorists took place. All nine hostages were killed, as well as five of the terrorists, a police officer, and a helicopter pilot.

Following the horrific terrorist attack, the question of whether to complete the Games came under discussion. The Israeli ambassador requested that the Games be canceled; athletes from the Arab states of Egypt, Kuwait, and Syria left the Games because of fear of possible reprisals. A number of Norwegian and Dutch athletes refused to compete, suggesting that the Games should be halted. American swimming champion Mark Spitz left, fearing for his life because of his Jewish American identity. However, a majority of athletes felt that the Games should continue. A memorial service was held on the morning of September 6 in the Olympic Stadium in front of a crowd of eighty thousand. At the service, IOC president Brundage announced that the Games must go on. They were extended by one day, to be completed by the eleventh of September.

Controversy

A number of incidents that displayed poor athletic behavior occurred during the Games. After losing a water polo match to the Soviets, Yugoslavian water polo athletes mobbed the Cuban referee, throwing water bottles and spitting on him. Members of the Pakistani field hockey team attacked the referees after their loss to West Germany. The team members were suspended from any future competition in the Olympics. Similarly, Vince Matthews and Wayne Collett of the United States were suspended from future Olympics competition following their behavior after the 400-meter track event in which they stood disrespectfully on the victory stand during the playing of the national anthem.

Controversy also developed during the gold-medal basketball contest between the United States and the Soviet Union. The men’s basketball team lost for the first time in the Olympics in a controversial contest that ended 51-50. With the U.S. team trailing 49-48 with a few seconds left to play, Doug Collins stole the ball from a Soviet player and broke down court for a lay-up. Collins was fouled and went to the free-throw line and scored both free throws to put the United States ahead 50-49. With three seconds on the clock, the Soviets tried to inbound the ball but failed. The Soviets were given two more chances to inbound the ball, and they finally scored. The United States appealed to the IOC, feeling it had been wronged. The appeals were denied, and the U.S. team declined to accept the silver medal and refused to attend the medals ceremony.

A number of mishaps plagued American athletes during the 1972 Games. Sixteen-year-old Rick DeMont, the gold medalist in the 400-meter freestyle swimming event, had his medal taken away when it was discovered that he was taking a prescription for his asthma that included a drug banned in the Olympics. He had listed the prescription drug that he had been taking for years on his medical form, but the team doctors of the United States neglected to provide the information to the IOC prior to his event. Moreover, two of the United States’ fastest sprinters, Eddie Hart and Raynaud Robinson, failed to attend their semifinal heats as a result of being given the wrong starting times by the U.S. sprint coach. Each had tied the world record prior to the Olympic Games, and in all likeliness, both would have contended for the gold medal. American pole-vaulter Bob Seagren, who had won a gold medal in the 1968 Games, was informed that because of a new rule, he would not be permitted to use his fiberglass pole.

Performances and Heroes

Aside from the controversies that emerged during the Games, there were a number of heralded performances. The 1972 Olympics resulted in thirty world records and eighty Olympic records. American athletes dominated the swimming events, winning seventeen gold medals out of twenty-nine swimming events. A fifteen-year-old Australian female swimmer, Shane Gould, won five medals in women’s swimming.

However, it was the performance of Mark Spitz that captured widespread attention in swimming. After he won five gold medals at the 1967 Pan-American Games, great things were expected of Spitz at the 1968 Olympic Games, but he surprisingly failed to win an individual event. At the 1972 Olympics, however, he set an Olympic record by winning seven gold medals, all of them in world-record time.

American wrestlers gave their best performances ever in wrestling, winning six medals—three gold, a silver, and two bronze medals. Wayne Wells and Ben Peterson joined Dan Gable, considered to be the United States’ greatest wrestler, in winning gold medals.

In the marathon, American Frank Shorter won the gold medal. It was the first time that an American won this event since 1908. In 1976, Shorter won the silver medal and became the first American to win two Olympic medals in the marathon. Shorter often has been credited as being responsible for the late 1970’s running boom in the United States. Gymnast Olga Korbut of the Soviet Union won a gold medal in the floor exercise and the balance beam that sparked a worldwide fad in her sport. Lasse Viren of Finland became only the fourth Olympian in history to win the 5,000- and 10,000-meter races within the same Games. Despite falling down in the finals of the 10,000-meter race, Viren was able to recover and run the final mile in a time of 4:01. Teofilo Stevenson won his first gold medal in the heavyweight boxing division. After the Olympics, he was pursued with lucrative multimillion dollar contracts to turn professional, but he refused to be lured with these offers and went on to win gold medals in the 1976 and 1980 Olympics.

The Soviet Union compiled a total of ninety-nine medals (fifty gold, twenty-seven silver, and twenty-two bronze) during the 1972 Summer Olympics, its best showing since entering the Games in 1952. The United States had a total of ninety-four medals (thirty-three gold, thirty silver, and thirty-one bronze).

The Olympic organizers had planned a festive conclusion for the Games, but because of the unfortunate events that unfolded, the closing ceremony lasted only forty-five minutes, with a brief period of silence for the eleven murdered Israeli athletes.

Impact

The Olympics of 1972 raised a number of issues dealing with the principles of amateurism and the difficulty to regulate it; the question was put to rest with the 1992 Barcelona Games, when all contestants, amateur and otherwise, were allowed to compete in most of the events on the Olympic program. The use of the Olympics to stage political statements would continue in subsequent Olympic Games but with greater attention to security. Nevertheless, the Olympics continued to be a major international athletic attraction as prices for the Games television rights increased during the latter part of the decade.

Bibliography

Espy, Richard. The Politics of the Olympic Games. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979. The author provides a historical account of the political, economic, social, and philosophical forces that have influenced the conduct of the Olympic Games.

Killanin, Lord, and Rodda John, eds. The Olympic Games: Eighty Years of People, Events, and Records. New York: Collier Books, 1976. Includes a collection of articles dealing with various aspects surrounding the Olympic movement such as amateurism and the development of the various sports that appear on Summer and Winter programs. Also, reviews each Olympiad up to 1972.

Mallon, Bill, and Ian Buchanan. Quest for Gold: The Encyclopedia of American Olympians, New York: Leisure Press, 1984. Provides brief biographical review of American Olympic athletes.