David presented no fewer than eleven Olympic games from Rome in 1960 to Sydney in 2000. But undoubtedly his most challenging broadcast is Munich in 1972. He was on air for several hours. The Quite Remarkable David Coleman, BBC 2011
South Africa was voted out of the Games [Mexico 68]. The World Against Apartheid: Have You Heard From Johannesburg? II Fair Play, PBS 2012
The Opening Ceremony for the summer games of the Twentieth Olympiad took place in Munich Germany on 26th August 1972: little did the world know what tragedy lay ahead. Black September, 1999
Entering the grounds was easy ... Unchallenged the intruders approached the Israeli team headquarters. ibid.
The Games went on. But there were also demonstrations demanding the suspension of the Games. There were nine hostages. The Crisis Management Team knew that – but they didn’t know how many terrorists they were dealing with. ibid.
The Israeli team accompanied their slain team-mates home. ibid.
In the Arab world the bodies of the five dead assassins were given a heroes’ welcome. ibid.
The Munich Massacre heralded the dawn of a new age of international terrorism. ibid.
They were supposed to be happy games [1972]. So we suspended all kinds of regulations that would have been standard operating procedure ... We decided to keep the police out of the Olympic village and venue. Manfred Schreiber, Munich rozzer
The birth of modern terrorism ... The events took place in Munich in the summer of 1972. At around five o’clock in the morning a group of Palestinian terrorists called Black September entered the Olympic village armed with AK47s. Taking hostage members of the Israeli Olympic team, they demanded the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. Terror Attacks That Shocked Britain
If we should give in then no Israeli anywhere in the world can feel that his life is same. It is blackmail of the worst kind. Golda Meir, Olympic Munich Hostage Massacre of 1972
Kelly Holmes had emerged in the mid-80s as a promising athlete. Leading up to the 1996 games she was a genuine contender for a gold medal ... For Kelly this [2004] was her last chance at Olympic glory ... Halfway through the race [800m] Kelly was second last ... Just as in the 800m Kelly took up a position at the back of the field [1500m]. The timing of her sprint was crucial. After so many problems Kelly Holmes was a double Olympic champion. Hall of Fame: Kelly Holmes
Once in a while two sportsmen have a rivalry that’s so intense it comes to define them. Seb Coe and Steve Ovett were two such people. And their names will ever be associated with their clash over two races at the 1980 Olympic Games. Hall of Fame: Coe v Ovett; Hall of Fame: Clash of the Titans
All eyes were on Coe and Ovett as the 800m started ... Coe had left it too late, and Ovett had won the 800m Olympic gold. ibid.
So when Los Angeles picked up the Olympic baton the Hollywood script-writers went into overdrive. And the undisputed star of the show was Carl Lewis. Hall of Fame: In a League of Their Own
Lewis’s first jump was over twenty-eight feet – a lead of almost a foot and a half over his nearest competitor. ibid.
Lewis won his fourth gold medal beating the world record [relay] by three-hundredths of a second. ibid.
Swimmer Mark Spitz already had a perfectly lovely moustache when in 1972 he decided to go for perfection in an unprecedented seven Olympic events. And that was up against some very stiff competition. ibid.
At the height of the Cold War whenever the USA and the Soviet Union met in the sporting area it was against a backdrop of highly tense political negotiations and the very real possibility of nuclear war ... When the USA met the Soviet Union in the Olympics at Lake Placid nobody was expecting an upset. Hall of Fame: The Upsets
The American team went on to beat Finland and win the Olympic gold. ibid.
Beamon stepped up to the mark ... Beamon’s jump was enormous, smashing the existing record by fifty-five centimetres. Hall of Fame: One-Hit Wonders
Beamon’s world record would stand for twenty-three years, until it was finally beaten by Mike Powell in 1991. ibid.
1992: together Derek Redmond and his father limped towards the finishing line. Hall of Fame: Tearjerkers
There are some athletes who seem so desperately unlucky, so unfortunate over a long period that they leave us desperate for them to succeed. Kelly Holmes was one such athlete ... ‘I remember in this race about ten metres before the line saying to myself, Relax. I just remember it.’ ibid.
Just as in the 800 metres Kelly was content to take a position at the back of the field. The timing of her sprint was crucial. After so many problems Kelly Holmes was a double Olympic champion. ibid.
The opening ceremony of the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 has arguable no equal ... They decided to ask the world’s most legendary sportsman – Muhammad Ali – to light the flame. ibid.
Ali had attended his first Olympics in 1960 winning the gold medal in Rome ... Arguably the most revered sportsman in history. ibid.
1976 would see a sporting display that was literally off the score board. At the Montreal Olympics ... Nadia Comaneci ... was about to make a name for herself on the uneven bars. Hall of Fame: Do You Remember the First Time?
Ali, Frazier, Foreman and Sugar Ray Leonard all made their name at the Games. In 2004 a young British boxer called Amir Khan was hoping to add to this list of immortals ... The schoolboy from Bolton was in the final. ibid.
2004 100m Relay Final: With the odds stacked against them the British team prepared to take on the formidable United States ... 38.09. Britain against all odds had won the Olympic gold. Hall of Fame: The Deciders
For many the very phrase dream-team was coined in 1992 by one incredible event: the formation of the USA basketball team assembled for the Barcelona Olympics. Hall of Fame: Dreams Teams
Daley Thompson was different. Daley Thompson was master of all events. Hall of Fame: Winning Streaks
Daley had put in the best first day in the history of the Decathlon. He now led [Jurgen] Hingsen by a hundred and fourteen points. But on the second day Hingsen hit back. And then came the discus. ibid.
Redgrave had won his fifth gold medal, an unprecedented achievement in an endurance event. ibid.
To do it without losing once borders on the impossible ... between 1977 and 1987 ... Ed Moses had won his second Olympic gold. ibid.
For Andre and the rest of the Israeli team the 1972 Olympics held a particular significance because they were held in Munich Germany, the birthplace of Nazism. Storyville: Olympic Massacre: One Day In September, BBC 2012
Security is kept deliberately lax. ibid.
Spontaneous demonstrations condemning the attacks sprung up around the world. ibid.
Secret Israeli assassination squads subsequently killed two of the three Palestinian survivors of Munich, together with at least a dozen others suspected of planning the attack. ibid. caption
Frankly, we have two purposes. The first one is to take the hostages in order to free our prisoners. If we can’t, we have squeeze [sic] our cause and five-hundred million houses all over the world. And they will ask – What’s the killers? Abu Daoud, of Munich Massacre
They were heroes. Abu Daoud
People are on drugs, they are in competitions on drugs, and they’re not getting caught. Carl Lewis, London televised interview
I’ve just been handed a piece of paper here that if it’s right it’ll be the most dramatic story out of these Olympics or perhaps any others. Desmond Lynum, BBC presenter, re Ben Johnson
Sooner or later your ability to succeed on natural talent runs out when you run against the chemical barrier. The question became do you take drugs and try to win, or do you content yourself with losing for ever by staying away from them? Charlie Francis, Ben Johnson’s coach
In 1988 Ben Johnson failed a drug test at the Olympic games in Seoul. Just forty-eight hours earlier he had set a new world record in the 100m, won the gold medal and defeated his arch-rival Carl Lewis. In the years after Seoul six of the eight finalists have been implicated in some form of controversy involving performance-enhancing drugs. And Johnson has long believed he was the fall-guy in a sport where steroid use was endemic. The Race That Shocked the World, BBC 2012
1984 Los Angeles: No athlete was going for greater glory than Carl Lewis. ibid.
Not only had results gone missing, but there was now a new substance on the scene: it wasn’t detectable at all. ibid.
Johnson needed to increase his speed endurance to compete with Lewis. ibid.