At a previously unrecorded altitude - 2.277 meters, the Central American megalopolis Mexico City organized the 19th Olympic Games, having previously won the host in competition with Buenos Aires, Detroit and Lyon.
The "mountain" Summer Olympics was difficult for most athletes due to thin air and low oxygen concentration, but, on the other hand, such conditions were favorable to some and helped them achieve great results. Especially in athletics, in the disciplines "through the air" - long jump, high jump and pole vault. Also in sprint disciplines. The world long jump record of the American Bob Beamon, achieved in Mexico City (8,90 meters) was so impressive that it was even 55 centimeters better than the previous record of the Soviet athlete Igor Ter-Ovanesyan, achieved a year earlier in the same city. Beamon's achievement remained valid for 23 years, until Mike Powell set a new, still current world record (1991) at the World Championship in Tokyo in 8,95.
At the Olympic Games in Mexico, for the first time, competitors from a three-digit number of countries (112) took part, some other world records were broken, but the central topic, nevertheless, was the terrible event that happened 10 days before the start of the review - the famous Tlatelolco massacre.
Throughout 1968, Mexican students protested against the government, demanding the introduction of democracy. They tried to use the organization of the Games to draw attention to their problems.
In a country where a real dictatorship ruled at the time, the academic citizens had five demands - to cancel the articles of the criminal law that prohibited public gatherings (if three or more people gathered in one place, the police had the right to arrest them), to that the "granadores" (special police forces) be disbanded, that political prisoners be released, that the chief of police and his deputy be fired, and that officials be punished for the bloodshed that reigned in the country.
All the media followed the protests day after day, and then President Gustavo Díaz Ordas ordered the demonstration to be broken up, without asking about the consequences.
That October 2, 10 days before the start of the Games, about five thousand students and workers arrived at the Plaza de las Tres Culturas (Three Cultures Square), shouting: "We don't want the Olympics, we want a revolution." Unfortunately, they could not even guess what was waiting for them.
When all the demonstrators gathered in the square in Tlatelolco, a district of Mexico City, members of the police and the army started shooting at them without any announcement. The epilogue was tragic - between 200 and 300 unarmed civilians were killed (although the government said that only four people were killed and 20 were wounded, and the demonstrators said that there were several thousand dead) in a massacre that was repeated only in 1989 in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
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Immediately after the massacre in Tletalolk, the International Olympic Committee convened an emergency meeting. Some delegates even proposed to cancel the Games, but this was abandoned. What's more, the OI in Mexico was opened by none other than Díaz Ordas.
Sports competitions started in a rather painful atmosphere, and doping control was introduced for the first time in the history of Olympism. "Pala" was also the first victim of doping, and the infamous honor of becoming the first athlete ever to be disqualified for using illegal substances went to Swedish pentathlete Hans-Gunnar Liljenval. He tested positive for alcohol, which he didn't drink to improve his chances, but to have fun...
The Games, where for the first time athletes from FR Germany (West) and DR Germany (East) performed separately, were marked by more controversial events, especially during the awarding of medals.
African-Americans Thomas Smith and John Carlos, who were first and third in the 200-meter athletics race, raised their black-gloved fists during the singing of the American anthem, which was a symbol of black rights fighters in the USA. Their compatriot Avery Brandage, who was the president of the IOC at the time, had them immediately expelled from the team and banned them from the next Games.
SFR Yugoslavia had an excellent score in Mexico City, the best until then - they won three gold and silver medals, as well as two bronze.
Finally, after three silver medals, the water polo players - Mirko Sandić, Ozren Bonačić, Đorđe Perišić and others, led by coach Aleksandar Sejfert, reached the cup by defeating the Hungarians in the semi-finals (8:6) and the Soviets after extra time (13 :11) in the final.
Gymnast Miroslav Cerar defended the crown on pommel horse, and swimmer Đurđica Bjedov won gold in the 100 and silver in the 200-meter breaststroke.
In the final of the basketball tournament, the generation of Radivoj Korać and Krešimir Ćosić was defeated by the undisputed Americans (65:50), and in the final match, Stevan Harvat also succumbed in Greco-Roman style wrestling. His colleague from the national team Branislav Šimić and boxer Zvonimir Vujin were third.
In athletics, the gold medal in the high jump went to Richard Fosbury. The American athlete would have drowned in the sea of Olympic champions, of whom no one knows now, if he had not reached the throne in an unprecedented way - first he crossed the scale with his back, and only then with his feet, as is done now.
Even today, this way of skipping is called the Fosbury style. Until then, athletes used to jump with their feet forward, using the so-called scissors.
The Czechoslovak gymnast Vera Časlavska won the most medals in Mexico City (four gold and two silver), and the athletic competitions, in addition to Bimon, were also marked by his compatriot Al Erter, who managed to achieve his fourth consecutive victory in the discus throw.
American sprinters Jim Hynes and Lee Evans broke records in the 100 and 400 meters, respectively, with times that remained unsurpassed for many years.
Debbie Mayer from the USA dominated the swimming pool with three gold medals won in the 200, 400 and 800 meters freestyle, and John Stefan Akvari from Tanzania, who finished the marathon despite dislocating his knee, is the proof that only the winners are remembered.
Demonstration sports that were on the program at the suggestion of the host of the Games were pelota and tennis, which only gained the status of an Olympic sport in 1988 in Seoul.
USA athletes again had the most success in Mexico City, winning 107 medals (45-28-34). The Soviet Union was second with 91 medals (29-32-30), while the third place went to Japan with 25 (11 - 7 - 7).
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