The 1980 Winter Olympics took place at a good time - it ended before the scandal about the boycott of the Olympic Games in Moscow broke out. Therefore, all the states that were going to take part in the competition sent their teams to the games, turning a blind eye to the political confrontation for a while.

Some states, such as Cyprus and Costa Rica, were represented at the Winter Olympics for the first time. Also present at the games was a team from the People's Republic of China, for the first time in its communist history. Prior to this, only the delegation of Taiwan participated in the games, and China considered it impossible for itself to compete with an unrecognized state, which, in turn, did not consider the communist regime in China to be legitimate.

In the unofficial team standings, the USSR national team took first place. The most successful was the performance of Soviet biathletes, as well as skiers. Figure skaters also brought gold. Irina Rodnina, the star of the 1972 and 1976 Olympics, confirmed her status by winning the third Olympic gold paired with Alexander Zaitsev. In ice dancing there is also a Soviet couple - Natalya Linichuk and Gennady Karponosov. In a hard struggle, Soviet hockey players also managed to get silver.

The second place with a slight lag behind the Soviet Union was taken by the GDR team. Traditionally, German bobsledders and skiers showed a high level.

The United States came only third. The athletes of this country received 12 medals, almost 2 times less than the athletes of the USSR and the GDR. Moreover, 5 out of 6 gold medals for the Americans were won by speed skater Eric Hayden. He set a record - no one before him won first place in all speed skating distances. The sixth gold was brought to America by a hockey team, traditionally strong in this country.

Related videos

Sources:

• Winter Olympics 1980

The year 1980 in the history of the modern Olympic movement is best known for the boycott of the Moscow Summer Olympics, but the Winter Games also took place that same year. They were held at the beginning of the year in the American city of Lake Placid and were not accompanied by any political conflicts.

The opening ceremony of the games with the participation of the then US Vice President Walter Mondale took place on February 14, 1980 at the city hippodrome, which can accommodate 30,000 spectators. And the closing ceremony 11 days later was held at the Herb Brooks Arena ice rink, specially built for the Olympics. A week and a half, which fit between these two events, passed under the sign of the dominance of athletes from the two countries - the GDR and the USSR.

German Olympians won the most medals - 23. In biathlon, they received five awards, while the remaining four went to Soviet athletes. In bobsledding, two teams of the GDR won four out of six awards, in luge - three out of nine.

Representatives of the USSR received seven awards in cross-country skiing and four of them were gold. According to the already established tradition, the Soviet figure skaters were also strong, bringing two gold, silver and bronze medals to the common piggy bank. But the hockey players, who had previously become Olympic champions five times in a row, sensationally lost to the US team made up of students and college students. In total, the athletes of the Soviet Union won one award less than the GDR team, but the USSR had more gold medals.

The Americans were third in the number of awards. In addition to the unexpected gold of hockey players, all other medals of the highest standard of the US Olympians at the XIII Winter Olympics belonged to the skater Eric Hayden. At these games, he went to the start five times and each time turned out to be faster than his rivals. With this achievement, the 21-year-old American could single-handedly lead the US to third place in the medal standings. In addition to him, the Hayden family was also represented on the skating track by the younger sister of Eric, who also did not remain without an award - she received bronze in skating for three kilometers.

In total, 38 sets of awards were played at the 1980 Winter Olympics, for which almost 1,100 athletes from 37 countries competed.

38 sets of awards were played in six sports.

By decision of the 82nd session of the International Olympic Committee, it was determined that the host city of the XIII Winter Olympic Games in 1980 would be Lake Placid. Candidates included: Banff ( Canada), Oslo ( Norway), Chamonix ( France) and Garmisch-Partenkirchen ( Germany). This historic decision was made at a meeting of IOC delegates, representatives of National Olympic Committees and international sports federations. The session was held in the conference hall of one of the best hotels in the city. More than 100 people attended this meeting. Representatives of the US delegation cheered. After all, Lake Placid after long break again became the capital of the Games. The first Winter Olympics were held in Lake Placid in 1932. This quiet resort town, of course, rightfully deserved to become the organizer of the XIII Winter Olympic Games in 1980.

1. Mascot of the 1980 Olympics.
2. The official poster of the 1980 Olympic Games.
3. A set of postage stamps issued by the US Postal Service for the 1980 Olympics.

Champions and medalists of the 1980 Olympics

Men's single skating
Gold - Robert Cousins ​​(Robert John "Robin" Cousins, born 1957), UK.
Silver- Jan Hoffmann (born 1955), East Germany.
Bronze- Charles Tickner (Charles Frederick "Charlie" Tickner, b. 1953), USA.

Women's Singles
Gold- Annette Pötzsch (born 1960), East Germany.
Silver- Linda Fratianne (Linda Sue Fratianne, b. 1960), USA.
Bronze- Dagmar Lurz, born in 1959, Germany.

sports couples
Gold- Irina Rodnina (b. 1949) - Alexander Zaitsev (b. 1952), USSR.
Silver- Marina Cherkasova (b. 1964) - Sergei Shakhrai (b. 1958), USSR.
Bronze- Manuela Mager (born 1962) - Uwe Bewersdorff (born 1958), East Germany.

dancing couples
Gold- Natalya Linichuk (b. 1956) - Gennady Karponosov (b. 1950), USSR.
Silver- Kristina Regőczy (Krisztina Regőczy, born 1955) - András Sallay (András Sallay, born 1953), Hungary.
Bronze- Irina Moiseeva (b. 1955) - Andrey Minenkov (b. 1954), USSR.

Lake Placid is located in the north of the United States in a picturesque place among national reserves ( 38 percent of the state), and its suburbs are foothills and lakes covered with snow from November to April. February is the snowiest month. Thus, the climate is very favorable. All this as a whole determined such a choice. In addition, the presence of a developed infrastructure of highways and airports and a railway network was taken into account. You can reach Montreal, just north of Lake Placid, in two hours by freeway, and New York City in five hours. The large Adirondack Airport is 17 miles from the town and a private jet airfield is a five-minute drive away.

An important factor was the fact that the inhabitants of the town were devoted fans of winter sports. After all, it was not in vain that already in 1904 sports clubs were created there. And one more remarkable fact - the first Olympic champion in winter sports, who won a gold medal in speed skating at the 1924 Winter Olympics in Chamonix ( France), was a resident of Lake Placid. The fact that Lake Placid was the organizer of the III Winter Olympic Games in 1932 also played a role.

The Olympic venues are easily accessible and close to downtown Lake Placid, with the exception of the luge and bobsleigh, skiing and biathlon tracks, which were all within six miles of the Olympic Village. Ski slopes were built 8 miles from the town.

The population of the town is 5,000 people. During the Games, they received 10,000 visitors who were accommodated in 150 hotels and motels. Among these guests were representatives of the IOC, the NOCs of the participating countries of the Games and international sports federations and the media, and, of course, athletes. In addition, 50,000 people were stationed within a 50-mile radius.

The US government did not provide proper assistance to Lake Placid in preparation for the Winter Games. The reconstruction of sports facilities was not completed, and a new prison building was used for housing in the Olympic Village. There were difficulties with transport, problems with the transfer of correspondence. At the same time, President Jimmy Carter's administration spent heavily on the Lake Placid campaign to boycott the Moscow Olympics. At the 82nd session of the International Olympic Committee, US Secretary of State Vance with the assistance of the American Olympic Committee, he insisted on depriving Moscow of the right to host the Games.

All these unpleasant moments did not affect the sporting side of the white Olympics too much. Competitions were held in an extremely tense struggle.

The opening ceremony of the 1980 Olympics.

The total construction costs amounted to $16.2 million. The main object was Olympic Center- this is an international skating rink, an ice arena of the stadium, having areas of 60 x 30 meters and 200 x 85 feet, respectively, as well as a reconstructed ice arena of the Olympic Stadium in 1932, which adjoined an oval 400-meter ice track. The total capacity of the stands of the International Ice Rink was 8,500 seats, out of 5,000 seats on the lower tier and 3,500 seats on the upper level of the arena, and the ice arena of the stadium - 2,500 seats. For the first time in the history of the Winter Olympics, artificial snow was used.

In May 1979, two meetings were held between government and sports delegations from Greece and the United States. Representatives of the National Olympic Committee of Greece presented a plan for organizing a torch relay in their country, and the American side presented a scheme for moving the torch relay through the United States. The organizers of the torch relay across the United States have developed its route in such a way that it passes through all the states of the country, reflecting the development of the state throughout its 200-year history. The organization of the torch relay aroused great interest among the athletes. More than 10,000 people took part in the official competition for the selection of participants in the torch relay, and only 52 athletes became direct participants, including 26 women and 26 men, and the official escort was 500 volunteers - representatives of various sports societies. The selection results were announced in April 1979.

1. Olympic champions in 1980 in the category of sports couples Irina Rodnina and Alexander Zaitsev.
2. Silver medalists of the 1980 Olympics in the category of sports couples Marina Cherkasova and Sergey Shakhrai.

The gold medals of the debutant of the Games of an athlete from the USSR became a real sensation of the skiing competition. Nikolai Zimyatov. The World Cup competitions preceding the Games strongly indicated that the winners of the cross-country skiing competitions were to be the athletes of Sweden and Norway. However, Lake Placid's first gold medal was won by Zimyatov, who won the 30 km race. A few days later he won a second gold medal - in the 50-kilometer distance. Zimyatov received his third gold medal for winning the team that won the 4 x 10 km relay. There was a dramatic struggle in the 15 km race, in which the Swede Thomas Wassberg just a hundredth of a second ahead of the Finn Yoho Mieto.

Alexander Tikhonov (biathlon) competed at the Winter Olympics for the fourth time and won a fourth gold medal.

Legendary Soviet skier Galina Kulakova won her eighth and final Olympic medal, silver in the relay.

The surprise was the victory of the US hockey players over the seemingly invincible team of the USSR, which won Olympic gold five times in a row. Composed of the best players from universities and colleges, the well-prepared team had a very strong tournament and were deservedly awarded gold medals.

In figure skating, athletes from the USSR took almost half of the podium - two golds, silver and bronze.

Received the third gold medal Irina Rodnina for the victory in pair skating - with Alexander Zaitsev. This medal has become the most expensive for her. After the birth of the child, Rodnina was able to restore in a short time sportswear. Rodnina's tears of joy on the podium during the performance of our anthem became a symbol of the Lake Placid Olympics for the entire Soviet Union.

Among the dancing couples, the first were wonderful Soviet athletes Natalia Linichuk And Gennady Karponosov.

Natalya Vladimirovna Linichuk(born in 1956, Moscow) performed in tandem with Gennady Mikhailovich Karponosov(born - 1950, Moscow) - Soviet figure skaters, two-time world champions (1978-1979), two-time European champions (1979-1980), Honored Masters of Sports of the USSR (1978), now figure skating coaches.
Linichuk and Karponosov trained with Elena Chaikovskaya and played for the Dynamo Moscow club. They received their first medal at the senior level in 1974. At the 1976 Olympics, when ice dancing was introduced into the program of the Winter Olympic Games, they came in fourth. Further, their success continued, and they became world champions in 1978 and 1979.
They won the 1980 Olympics, but in the same year they lost to the Hungarian couple at the World Championships. Cristina Regoshi - András Shallai. In 1981, Linichuk and Karponosov ended their sports career.
Natalia Linichuk and Gennady Karponosov became successful ice dancing coaches. They work in the city of Aston (USA). In their coaching duet, Gennady is in charge of the compulsory dances, and Natalia is in charge of the original dance and free program. Their students at different times were such Russian couples: Oksana Grischuk - Evgeny Platov, Anzhelika Krylova - Oleg Ovsyannikov, AND Rina Lobacheva - Ilya Averbukh, Tatyana Navka - Nikolai Morozov, Anna Semenovich - Roman Kostomarov, Galit Khait - Sergey Sakhnovsky(Israel), Albena Denkova - Maxim Stavinsky(Bulgaria), Tanith Belbin - Benjamin Agosto(USA). In June 2008, the leaders of the Russian team announced their decision to train with Linichuk and Karponosov Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin.

Among men's singles, the winner of the Games was the representative of Great Britain Robin Cusins. At the 1976 Games, he was only 10th, at the 1978 World Cup - third, and in 1979 - second. Cousins ​​continued the tradition of brilliant victories of great British skaters.

They say talented people are talented in everything. This can be fully attributed to Robin Cusins. He belongs to that rare type of skaters who equally combine the ability to perform the most complex elements and convey to the viewer the impulses of his soul. The name of Cousins ​​entered the golden fund figure skating along with the names of his compatriots: Diana Tauler-Bernard Ford, John Curry, Jane Torvill - Christopher Dean.
At the end of a successful career in amateurs, the Olympic champion did not get lost, but revealed himself in new guises. In 1989, Cousens took over the coaching staff of the new Ice Castle International training center in San Bernardino (USA). He is a great athlete, choreographer, artist, designer, singer - and continues to amaze us to this day.

1. 1980 Olympic champions in ice dancing Natalya Linichuk and Gennady Karponosov.
2. Bronze medalists of the 1980 Olympics in ice dancing Irina Moiseeva and Andrey Minenkov.

Another sensation was two gold and two silver medals won by athletes from Liechtenstein. Alpine skiing gold medal winner Hanni Wenzel (slalom and giant slalom).

Remarkable skill of the American speed skater Eric Hayden, who won all 5 gold medals, allowed the US team to take the overall third place in the unofficial standings. Hayden's achievement is striking not so much because the athlete won a record number of medals for some Games, but, above all, victories in both sprint and stayer distances. Hayden also achieved high results in cycling: in 1985 he became the US professional champion, and in 1986 he participated in the Tour de France race. The athlete refused tempting offers in commercial activities and preferred a career as a doctor.

For the first time, the sprint was included in the biathlon program of the Winter Olympics. The first champion in the new discipline was Frank Ulrich from the GDR.

Gold in women's singles belongs to Annette Pötsch- an outstanding East German figure skater. Pötsch is a two-time world champion (1978, 1980), a four-time European champion (1977-1980), a five-time champion of the GDR (1976-1980). She trained with a famous trainer from the GDR Jutta Müller in the famous sports club SC Karl-Marx-Stadt (SC Karl-Marx-Stadt).
A distinctive feature of Annette's style of skating is a huge advantage in compulsory figures, athletic sports programs. She owned two triple jumps - sheepskin coat and salchow. Pötsch currently works as a coach in Chemnitz and is an ISU referee.

Skaters from the USSR won silver in competitions among sports pairs Marina Cherkasova(who was only 15 years old) and Andrey Shakhrai.

The appearance of a pair of Cherkasov - Shakhrai on the ice aroused genuine interest among all figure skating fans. 13 year old girl and adult partner. Sergei Shakhrai was six years older than Marina Cherkasova and 35 cm taller (at that time, Marina was 138 cm tall). At their first European Championships in Helsinki in 1977, the unusual couple immediately won bronze. When Zhuk was asked why he made such an unusual pair, he reasonably remarked: “I don’t train basketball players. This figure skating". A year later, Marina grew by 20 cm, and Zhuk answered the same question differently: “I don’t train midgets.”
When, after the holidays, the exhausted Marina, together with Sergey, went out on the ice, nothing was possible: the technique changed, the jumps did not work. Cherkasova and Shakhrai in 1980 still won a gold medal at the World Championships and a silver medal at the European Championships. But at the Olympics, it was not possible to take gold. After that sports career Marina and Sergei began to decline. Already in Moscow, the coach made a decision: the Cherkasov-Shakhrai pair no longer exists. Now Sergey lives in Australia and trains sports couples, Marina works as a coach in Moscow, in ice palace"Umka" - raises future ice stars from five-year-old babies. And she proudly says that she always dreamed of doing this. Even despite the fact that she did not have time to fully realize herself in sports.

On the whole, the 1980 Winter Olympics were a success for the USSR. Soviet athletes became winners in the overall medal standings - they won 10 gold medals, 4 of which were in cross-country skiing.

1. 1980 Olympic champion in men's singles, Robert Cousins.
2. Silver medalist of the 1980 Olympics in men's singles Jan Hoffmann.
3. 1980 Olympic champion in women's singles Annette Petch.

Featured sports
Biathlon
Bobsled
Skiing
Skating
Nordic combined
Ski race
ski jumping
luge
Figure skating
Hockey

Unfortunately, the US government did not provide proper assistance to Lake Placid in preparation for the 1980 Winter Olympics. The reconstruction of sports facilities was not completed, and a new prison building was used for housing in the Olympic village. There were difficulties with transport, problems with the transfer of correspondence. At the same time, President Carter's administration spent heavily on the Lake Placid campaign to boycott the Moscow Olympics. At the 82nd session of the IOC, US Secretary of State Vance, with the assistance of the American Olympic Committee, insisted on depriving Moscow of the right to host the 1980 Olympics. All these unpleasant moments did not affect the sports side of the Winter Olympics too much.

The competitions, in which 1283 athletes from 49 countries took part, were held in an extremely tense struggle. The program of the Olympics included 38 competitions: biathlon - races for 10 and 20 km, relay race 4 x 7.5 km; bobsleigh, men - two and four; skiing, men - 15, 30 and 50 km races, 4 x 10 km relay, 70 and 90 m ski jumping; ski biathlon; women - 5 and 10 km races, 4 x 5 km relay; alpine skiing, men and women - downhill, slalom and giant slalom; luge, men and women on 1-seater and men on 2-seater sledges; speed skating, men - 500, 1000, 1500 and 10000 m, women - 500, 1000, 1500 and 3000 m; figure skating, men and women, in single and pair skating, sports ice dancing; hockey.

The gold medals of the debutant of the Olympic Games, an athlete from the USSR Nikolai Zimyatov, became a real sensation of the skiing competition. The World Cup competitions that preceded the Olympics strongly indicated that the winners of the cross-country skiing competitions were to be the athletes of Sweden and Norway. However, Lake Placid's first gold medal was won by Zimyatov, who won the 30 km race. A few days later, he won a second gold medal - in the 50-kilometer distance. Nikolai Zimyatov received the third gold medal for winning the team that won the 4 x 10 km relay. The fight in the 15 km race was dramatic, in which the Swede Thomas Wassberg was only a hundredth of a second ahead of the Finn Yoho Mieto.

The victory of the US hockey players was unexpected. Composed of the best players from universities and colleges and well-prepared team very confidently held the tournament and was deservedly awarded gold medals.

Another sensation was two gold and two silver medals won by athletes from Liechtenstein. Hanni Wenzel won gold medals in alpine skiing in slalom and giant slalom.

Soviet biathlete Alexander Tikhonov competed at the Winter Olympics for the fourth time and won his fourth gold medal.

Irina Rodnina won the third gold medal in pair skating.

The remarkable skill of the American skater Eric Hayden, who won all 5 gold medals, allowed the US team to take the overall third place in the unofficial standings. Hayden's achievement is striking not so much because the athlete won a record number of medals for some Olympic Games, but first of all with victories at seemingly completely incompatible distances - from "clean" sprints to typical stayers. Hayden also achieved high results in cycling - in 1985 he became the US professional champion, and in 1986 he participated in the Tour de France race. The athlete refused tempting offers in commercial activities and preferred a career as a doctor.

Athletes of the GDR did not limit themselves to successful performance in sports in which they had already become recognized leaders. In Lake Placid, they managed to win gold medals in the women's 10 km cross-country skiing - Barbara Petzold, in the women's singles skating - Anette Pötsch, in the women's 500 m speed skating - Karin Encke.

53-year-old athlete from Sweden, Karl-Erik Erikson, managed to take only 19th place in the double bob competition and 21st in the quadruple. However, he became the first athlete to compete in six Winter Olympics.

In the unofficial team standings, the GDR team won first place with 154.5 points and 24 medals - 10 gold, 7 silver, 7 bronze. The second place went to the athletes of the USSR with 147.5 points and 22 medals - 10 gold, 6 silver, 6 bronze. In third place was the US team, winning 99 points and 12 medals - 6 gold, 4 silver, 2 bronze.

Three sets of awards were played in the men's competition. For the first time in the history of the Olympic Games, biathletes competed for medals in a 10 km sprint race with two firing lines. Gold in this discipline was won by the main favorite Frank Ulrich from the GDR, who won the sprint at the 1978 and 1979 World Championships. Ulrich missed twice, but this did not stop him from getting ahead of the Soviet biathletes Vladimir Alikin (1 miss) and Anatoly Alyabyev (0 misses). In the 20 km individual race, Ulrich was also considered the favorite. He showed the highest speed on the track (only Vladimir Alikin lost to Ulrich with a move of less than two minutes), but Frank made three misses (three penalty minutes), while Anatoly Alyabyev shot clean and beat Ulrich by 11.5 seconds. The third was Eberhard Rösch from the GDR, who lost to Alyabyev for almost three minutes. A 28-year-old Olympic debutant, Alyabyev, who had never won a World Championship medal before the Lake Placid Games, was the only one to not miss, and there was not a single biathlete who missed less than two times.

In the relay, the struggle unfolded as expected between the biathletes of the USSR and the GDR, who had previously won all the medals in individual races. The key was the second stage, in which the three-time world champion Klaus Siebert received a penalty loop in the prone and standing shooting and eventually lost to Alexander Tikhonov for more than a minute. At the third stage, Frank Ulrich won over 45 seconds from Vladimir Barnashov, but at the fourth stage, standing shooting, Eberhard Rösch received another penalty loop, which allowed Anatoly Alyabyev to finish alone, the GDR team was 53 seconds behind at the finish line. Bronze went to the German national team, which lost to the USSR team for more than three minutes. The USSR national team has won all 4 relay races in the Olympic Games since 1968, all 4 times Alexander Tikhonov was in the team.

Bobsled

Two sets of medals were played in the competitions of fours and twos among men. Bobsledders competed at Mt. Van Hoevenberg Olympic Bobsled Run, which also hosted the competitions of the 1932 Olympic Games. All medals were won by bobsledders from Switzerland and the GDR. In deuces, the crew of multiple world champion 33-year-old Erich Scherer from Switzerland won a confident victory. The Swiss have won gold in this discipline for the first time since 1948. Scherer and his accelerating Josef Benz won 3 out of 4 races, the second crew of the GDR under the control of two-time Olympic champion in 1976 Bernhard Germeshausen (4 years ago he acted as accelerating) lost more than 1.5 seconds to the Swiss. Third place was taken by the first crew of the GDR, 39-year-old pilot Meinhard Nemer, who won two gold medals 4 years earlier. In the four-man competition, Nemer took revenge on the Swiss, while Germeshausen this time joined Nemer's crew as an overclocker. Scherer's crew lagged behind the GDR team by 0.95 seconds. The second crew of the GDR, Horst Schönau, lost 0.10 seconds to the Swiss, although the Swiss were third before the last race.

Skiing

Six sets of awards were played (three each among men and women), the competitions were held on the slopes of Mount Whiteface (eng. Whiteface), located on the Adirondack ridge northeast of Lake Placid. Among men, the leader of the world alpine skiing of the late 1970s, Swede Ingemar Stenmark, who won gold in slalom and giant slalom disciplines, distinguished himself. At the same time, in both disciplines, the 23-year-old Stenmark was relatively unsuccessful on the track in the first attempt, but bounced back in the second. In the downhill, Austrian Leonard Stock won gold, only his compatriot Peter Wiernsberger lost to Stock by less than one second.

In women, 23-year-old Hanni Wenzel from Liechtenstein excelled, winning gold in the slalom and giant slalom (in the slalom she had a lead of almost 1.5 seconds over second-placed Christa Kinshofer), and in the downhill, Wenzel was second behind Austria's Annemarie Moser - Prel. Wenzel's gold medals were the first ever for Liechtenstein at the Olympic Games in all sports (both winter and summer) and remain the only one to this day (as of the start of the 2018 Winter Olympics). In addition, Liechtenstein is the most sparsely populated country in the history of the Olympic Games, whose citizen managed to win Olympic gold.

Skating

Nordic combined

One set of medals was played. Athletes performed three jumps, the worst result was not taken into account. The results in the race for 15 km with a separate start were recalculated into points, and the winner was determined by the sum of the two types. East German Nordic combined 27-year-old Ulrich Wöhling, who had previously been the best in combined at the 1972 and 1976 Games, won his third straight Olympic victory. Wehling took the lead after the jump part, in the race he showed the ninth result, but this was enough to win. In jumping, the American Walter Malmqvist unexpectedly showed the second result, but as a result of an unsuccessful performance on the ski track, he rolled back in the sum of two types to 12th place. Silver was eventually won by 23-year-old Finn Jouko Karjalainen, who showed best time on the track (in jumps he was seventh). The third was the bronze medalist of the 1976 Olympic Games and the 1978 world champion Konrad Winkler from the GDR (fifth place in jumps and eighth place on the track). Pole Jan Legerski, who took second place in the race, failed to rise above 10th place due to 19th place in jumps.

Lake Placid (USA)

The 1980 games were not so lucky. They were carried out during the most desperate period of the Cold War, when Soviet troops entered Afghanistan, and the United States and its allies were preparing to boycott the Summer Olympics in Moscow. The opposing blocs poured mud at each other, and our delegation's trip to the "enemy's lair" was accompanied by powerful ideological pumping. The USSR team included 86 athletes representing all sports except bobsleigh. Most of them spent two weeks in Lake Placid waiting for provocations from the American secret services, and Soviet newspapers wrote viciously about "their morals" and about the numerous blunders of the organizers of the Games.

Venue: Lake Placid, USA
February 14 - 23, 1980
Number of participating countries - 37
Number of athletes participating - 1072 (232 women, 840 men)
Medal sets - 38
Team winner - USSR

The three main characters of the Games according to "SE"

Herb Brooks (USA)
hockey (coach)
Eric Hayden (USA)
skating
Nikolai Zimyatov (USSR),
ski race

IN THE LAIR OF THE ENEMY

There were indeed grounds for dissatisfaction with the organization of the Games. Lake Placid hosted the Winter Olympics for the second time, and again, as in 1932, made many miscalculations. Chief among them was the failure of the Olympic village project. It was not possible to find an investor for him, and the local authorities did not come up with anything better than to provide athletes with a freshly built prison for juvenile delinquents. The Olympians had to rest in concrete chambers between starts - many complained about the oppressive atmosphere. During the 1980 Games, there were also problems with transport, communication and ticket sales.

Another problem was the lack of snow on the ski slopes. But it was solved with the help of snow cannons. More than $5 million was spent on the production of artificial snow - this was the first such case in the history of the Games. For many athletes, artificial turf turned out to be unusual - they had to adapt to new conditions. It is believed that it was the snow from the cannons that helped Swede Ingemar Stenmark become a two-time Olympic champion, who won the competition in alpine skiing and giant slalom just five months after a serious injury.

But Stenmark's medals are not primarily remembered in connection with the 1980 Winter Olympics. The main event of the Games was the victory of the US hockey team over the great Soviet team, which interrupted the 16-year hegemony of the USSR in the Olympic hockey tournaments. Players from student teams sensationally overcame the "red car" and won gold medals. The US-USSR match, which was dubbed "Miracle on Ice" in the Western press, is recognized as the main event in the centenary history of hockey and in the history of American sports in the 20th century.

MIRACLE ON ICE

There are many explanations for the failure of Soviet hockey players - the change of generations in our team, the underestimation of rivals (on the eve of the Olympics, the USSR team defeated the US team with a score of 10: 3) and the mistakes of our coach Viktor Tikhonov, who was tactically outplayed by the American Herb Brooks. But the fact remains that the unknown students beat the most stellar team in the history of Soviet hockey with a score of 4:3. By the way, that historical duel was not decisive at all. After him, the US team also had to beat the Finns. After two periods, the hosts of the Olympics were losing 1:2, but managed to score three goals in a row and went down in history.

Almost the entire USSR team at that Olympics consisted of the legends of our hockey. Vladislav Tretyak, Boris Mikhailov, Valery Kharlamov, Vyacheslav Fetisov, Vladimir Krutov, Sergey Makarov played for her. They finished six matches against other rivals with a total score of 60:13. "Miracle on Ice" overshadowed another major event in the hockey tournament - the return to the Games after an eight-year absence from Canadians. True, the Maple Leaves in Lake Placid failed to even make it out of the group, showing their worst result in history.

In the shadow of hockey achievements was even the grandiose performance of the American skater Eric Hayden, who won all five Olympic distances and became a five-time Lake Placid champion, setting a record for the Winter Games. The absence of the planned hockey gold did not prevent the USSR national team from achieving victory in the team event. Soviet Olympians won 10 awards of the highest value, ahead of athletes from the GDR in this indicator. Although in terms of the total number of medals, the East Germans still showed the best result.

TEAR OF THE CHAMPION

Among the Soviet heroes of the 1980 Games are biathlete Alexander Tikhonov, who won first place in the relay for the fourth time in a row, and figure skater Irina Rodnina, who became a three-time Olympic champion in Lake Placid. Rodnina's tears on the pedestal during the award ceremony are one of the most emotionally striking moments in the history of Russian sports. After the 1980 Olympics, the most titled figure skater in history will end her career as an athlete, and in 1990 she will leave to work as a coach in the United States for 12 years. In 2013, a book of her memoirs will be released under the title "Tears of a Champion". As for Tikhonov, in the future he will become a sports functionary and entrepreneur. In 2007, the court found him guilty of preparing an assassination attempt on the governor of the Kemerovo region Aman Tuleev, but released him from punishment under an amnesty.

Games at the peak of the Cold War were generally quite successful for us, despite the political and moral costs. In Lake Placid, skier Nikolai Zimyatov excelled, taking two individual and one relay gold. In the 50 km marathon, the little-known athlete before the Olympics beat the legendary Finn Juha Mieto by almost three minutes. Although, probably, this defeat was not as offensive as losing the 15 km race to the Finn. Only one hundredth of a second separated Mieto from the Olympic champion Thomas Wassberg. This is the smallest gap between the winners in Olympic history ski racing.

Another our heroine was the former seamstress from Riga Vera Zozulya, who sensationally celebrated the victory in the German patrimony - luge. After the collapse of the USSR, the only one in Russian history Olympic champion in luge will work first as a simple physical education teacher, then as a coach in Poland, Latvia and Kazakhstan, but will not be in demand in Russia.

Dwarfs vs Titans

One of the surprising features of the final medal table of the 1980 Olympics was the incredibly high - sixth - place of the Liechtenstein team, ahead of such winter sports leaders as the Norwegians, Finns and Swiss. The reason was the success of only two skiers - sister and brother Hanni and Andres Winzel, who for two won 4 medals in Lake Placid, including two gold ones. In general, Liechtenstein, thanks to its skiers from 1976 to 1988, consistently won medals in Winter Games. It is the most successful dwarf power in Olympic history.

Team Canada received a particularly warm welcome during the opening ceremony in Lake Placid. At the end of 1979, diplomats from this country, during the seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran by radical students, rescued and brought home six Americans. True, another 52 employees of the embassy remained hostage, and for this reason, the option of the arrival of the Iranian team to the Games was not even considered. But at the 1980 Winter Olympics, the Chinese team returned to the Olympic family, which had not previously competed at the Games because of the IOC's position on the Taiwan issue. In the late 1970s, priorities changed and Taiwan was asked to drop its flag and go under the name Chinese Taipei. The Taiwanese were offended and boycotted the 1980 Olympics.

However, against the backdrop of global political demarches on Summer Games in the 1970s and 1980s, all these events will turn out to be only petty skirmishes. The main political upheavals, fortunately, caught on winter olympics only tangentially.