1980 Summer Olympics Moscow
Saturday, 2nd August, 2008
Boycott It was the first time that Summer Olympics were held outside the Eastern Europe in 1980. It was Moscow that had won the bid to organize the event in competitions to Los Angeles. Some of the games were played in other cities of USSR that involved Kiev, Minsk,and Tallinn except Moscow. These games had run into controversy as more that 45 countries had boycotted the games that included United Stated also. They had taken this step as a protest to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Only eighty-one countries were left who participated in the games after the boycott by some countries. It was the lowest figure of participating countries after the 1956. It ware eight new nations who participated first time in the games who were previously known Rhodesia. They were Angola, Vietnam, Botswana, Laos, Nicaragua, Seychelles, Mozambique and Cyprus and Zimbabwe.
Hockey India had finished at the position of 23rd as it could succeed in winning only one gold medal. It was the Indian hockey team that had won the sole God medal for the country. AS most of the hockey playing countries had boycotted the event so there was no other strong team that could give enough competition to Indian team except Spain. No other team could perform well against Indians as they were not nowhere near to standards of International hockey and were thrashed mercilessly by the Indians. Final was played between Indian and Spain and India won the final as the final score was 4-3.
Other Games In other games Indian could not perform well. Most of its Boxers perished in the first round of the game. Only Ganapathy Manoharan could surviver till the third round. Indian mens basket ball team lost all of its matches and finished with the 12th position. In men’s marathon Hari Chand finished with the 31th position and the other athlete Shivnath Singh could not complete his race.
Womens Women’s hockey team’s performance was average as it scored two wins lost two and drew one against Zimbabwe. It finished with the fourth position. 1980’s Summer Olympics brought no difference for the Indians as for as their previous performance is considered. It was only the game of hockey from which it had expected the gold medal and they won it.
