Munich 1972 - Olympic Games Winners

Start:

26 Aug 1972

End:

11 Sep 1972

Countries:

121

Athletes:

7134

Sports:

Events:

195

City:

Munich, FRG (Kiel - sailing)

In April 1967, at the 67th session in Rome, the IOC decided among the applications of the four cities - Detroit, USA; Madrid, Spain; Munich, FRG and Montreal, Canada.
On the second ballot, Munich was chosen with the necessary majority as the site for staging the Olympic Games 1972.

On August 26, President Gustav Heinemann officially opened the Games of the 20 Olympiad at the new fantastic 80,000-seat Olympic Stadium.
But on the morning of September 5, the Games were interrupted when eight Palestinian terrorists from the militant group Black September broke into the rooms of the Israeli team in the Olympic Village. Two Israelis were killed immediately, and nine others were taken hostage and then killed. The Games were suspended for 34 hours, but Avery Brundage, the IOC President, decided not to let terrorism to destroy the spirit of the Olympics and declared famously "The Games must go on".
Rhodesia and South Africa were banned from participating in the Olympic Games after protests from the African nations and the American track and field team against Rhodesia's racist policy.
The results in track and field and swimming were fixed to within 0,01 sec.
The American swimmer Mark SPITZ won seven gold medals in world record time.