Exactly 52 years after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius forced Rome to cancel the organization of the Olympic Games, the Eternal City was waiting to host the biggest sporting event.
The Olympic Games also arrived, to be held again after Athens in 1896 in an ancient setting, which was the long-standing wish of the founder of the modern Olympic movement, the French baron Pierre de Coubertin. And it was realized, but 23 years after his death.
Rome won the competition from Lausanne, Detroit, Budapest, Brussels, Mexico City and Tokyo and started organizing the Games, which were special in many ways.
They were not the first Games to be televised, but they were the first to be helped by the global development and spread of television in promoting and broadcasting the broadcast. This is how the first real TV Olympic stars were born (boxer Mohamed Ali, one of them), and huge interest was achieved worldwide, as more than 100 TV stations from Europe, America, Canada and Japan broadcast the competitions live. It is also remembered that the TV company CBS paid 400 thousand dollars for the exclusive transmission rights, which was the beginning of the relationship between television and sports as we know it today.
On the other hand, the organizers made an effort to bring beautiful scenes to homes around the globe - for example, a marathon race started in front of the Capitol and ended at the Colosseum, a wrestling tournament was organized inside the walls of the Maxentius Basilica, and gymnastics competitions were held in the Baths of Caracal. .. Modern and televised games, in a real antique setting - that was Rome in 1960.
The Yugoslav football team won the gold medal - after three consecutive silvers, finally breaking the curse of the final match.
The Blues defeated Egypt (6:1) and Turkey (4:0) to the throne, drew with Bulgaria (3:3), and in the semi-finals they were very lucky - after 1:1 against Italy, a coin toss determined who would go. to the final. Having overcome such an obstacle, Milan Galić and his teammates had no problems with the Danes in the match for gold - they won 3:1, after a 2:0 lead at halftime. The goals for the Yugoslav team were scored by Galić, Željko Matuš and Borivoje Kostić.
The second medal for Yugoslavia in Rome - silver, was won by the wrestler from Belgrade, Branislav Martinović.
One of the most beautiful Olympic stories, not only at the Games in Rome, was written by Abebe Bikila from Ethiopia, the first black African ever to win an Olympic gold medal. He reached it with the world record in the marathon, since he ran the entire route through the streets of the Eternal City barefoot.
He claimed that he was not used to running in shoes and that the sneakers were just a nuisance. Despite those words, four years later he laced up his sneakers at the Tokyo Olympics - and won again, even though he'd had appendicitis surgery just a few months earlier.
For a long time, Bikila enjoyed the status of a national hero in Ethiopia, but his story ended tragically - after the Games in 1968, he had a car accident and was paralyzed below the waist, and died in 1973 from complications caused by that injury. However, the legend remained - to be told and remembered...
And the feat of Wilma Rudolph, an athlete from the United States of America, who won three gold medals in the sprint events (100, 200 and 4 x 100 meter relay), will be remembered, two of which were world records. She dedicated all three golds to Jesse Owens, the hero of the Berlin Games, who was her life's inspiration.
Vilma Rudolf was born as the 20th of 22 children of Ed and Blanche Rudolf, and she was only four years old when she contracted polio. She overcame the evil disease thanks to her incredible persistence and great desire to play sports, but also thanks to her mother's superhuman sacrifice. In Melbourne in 1956, she was just 16 years old and won a bronze medal in the 4 x 100m relay, even though she had only walked four years earlier.
She was called the "golden gazelle" because of the grace of her movements, but her career was cut short at the age of 22. After retiring, she worked as a teacher, coach and sports commentator, and died at the age of 54 from a brain tumor, just a few months after her mother's death.
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In Rome, one of the greatest boxers of all time, Cassius Clay, later known as Muhammad Ali, stepped onto the big stage. He literally walked to the gold in the Eternal City, and every fight was like an easy training for him, including the final when he threw the best European boxer in the light heavyweight division of the time - Polish Zbigniew Piatschikowski - on the ropes.
Clay later threw the gold medal, won in Rome, into the Ohio River, resigned that they refused to serve him in a restaurant reserved for whites only. A replica of the medal was presented to him in Atlanta in 1996.
At the Rome Games, Danish sailor Paul Elvstrom won his fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal (third in the "Fin" category), becoming the first individual athlete to do so.
On the other hand, the Hungarian fencer Aladar Gerevič won the sixth consecutive gold medal in team competitions (saber discipline), which is still an unachieved record when it comes to team sports.
The legendary Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina, the most decorated Olympian of all time, won six more medals in Rome (four gold, one silver and one bronze) and thus continued the streak started in Melbourne four years earlier.
The Games in Italy will also be remembered for one tragic event, as the Danish cyclist Knut Jensen collapsed during the race and later died in the hospital. It was only the second time in history that a competitor died during the competition at the Games - the first time it happened to the Portuguese Francisco Lazar, during the marathon at the Olympic Games in Stockholm in 1912.
By far the most successful athletes in Rome were the Soviets, who won more than a quarter of the total gold medals awarded (43 - 29 - 31). They were especially proud that, in the midst of the Cold War, they were more successful than the second-placed competitors from the United States (34 - 21 - 16), but also than the Italians (13 - 10 - 13), the united Germans (12 - 19 - 11) and many other countries, especially from the capitalist world...
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