Thursday, May 7, 2009

Sports in the 1980's


  • The 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow were disrupted by a boycott led by the United States and 64 other countries in protest of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

  • The 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles were boycotted by the Soviet Union and most of the communist world (China, Romania, and Yugoslavia participated in the games) in retaliation for the 1980 boycott.

  • The 1984 Winter Olympics are held in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia (now Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina). Yugoslavia becomes the second communist country to host the Olympic Games, but unlike the Soviet Union in 1980, there were no boycotts of the Games by western countries.

  • The Jamaica national bobsled team received major media attention and stunned the world at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Canada for its unexpected good performance. It overcame the stereotype that northern countries were the only efficient competitors in winter Olympic Games due to the fact of having an actual winter. The events surrounding the Jamaica bobsled team in 1988 would lead to the creation of the hit Disney movie Cool Runnings five years later which was based on Jamaica's 1988 bobsled team.

  • The 1988 Summer Olympics are held in Seoul, South Korea. Attempts to include North Korea in the games were unsuccessful, and it boycotted along with six other countries, but with 160 nations participating, it had the highest attendance of any Olympics to date.

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