The wave of political turmoil on the global stage continued at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, with an almost paranoid fear of terrorist attacks due to the massacre of members of the Israeli team in Munich by a group of Palestinians four years earlier.
The Games in Canada, from July 17 to August 1, 1976, are remembered for the first mass boycott. Most African countries did not want to participate in Montreal, because the IOC allowed the participation of representatives of New Zealand, whose rugby team held traditional matches with South Africa.
Apartheid (the social system implemented by the ruling white minority in South Africa in the 20th century) was in force in that republic. According to him, the black majority was segregated and denied political and economic equality with whites.
The Games were therefore boycotted by Algeria, Cameroon, Egypt, Ghana, Iraq, Kenya, Nigeria, Tunisia... Zaire did not compete, but cited financial reasons rather than political ones, while the Chinese boycotted the Games due to the question of the legitimacy of another country.
From 1976, the increasingly massive boycott of the Olympic Games began, mostly due to the height of the Cold War, so the same fate awaited Moscow in 1980 and Los Angeles in 1984.
It was Moscow and Los Angeles that wanted the organization of the 1976 Games, but the IOC made a compromise between the two political extremes and awarded the host to Montreal, and the American and Soviet megalopolises waited their turn.
Due to the Games, Montreal also fell into financial problems, because the expensive and ambitiously conceived sports park was delayed in construction and exceeded the planned costs many times over.
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And now, the return to the sports field - the OI in Canada was marked by the inimitable Romanian gymnast Nađa Comaneci, who was only 14 years old, and became the first competitor ever whose performance was rated ten.
A special place in the memory of the world's sports public will be the fact that after her performance on the double-height loom, the scoreboard of the Monteal Games could not show the score - instead of 10,0, it read 1,00!
In addition to the "historical top ten", the girl from Oneşti, Romania, who was named after an unknown actress from an unknown Russian film (which her mother watched while she was pregnant), received three gold medals, one silver and one bronze each.
She also shone in Moscow four years later, and Nadja's fairy tale ended in 1981 when her coach Bela Karolj and his wife fled to America and requested political asylum.
The "Queen of Gymnastics" was then placed under surveillance by the infamous Ceausescu regime and banned from traveling abroad for fear that she might do the same. Finally, she managed to tear herself away from the iron grip of the "blue Danube of socialism", as they called Ceausescu, and on the eve of his fall, she managed to escape to America.
There, as the story goes, a Romanian named Konstantin Panait held Maltene in captivity, having previously allowed her to escape by charging five thousand dollars for the service.
Panait quickly realized how popular she was in America and started charging for her interviews and appearances on TV shows. He allegedly earned as much as 200 thousand dollars on her account. And Nadja was such a magnet that two songs were written in her honor even before that in America.
The American Opera used her feats in gymnastics in the music video for the song "The Young and the Restless", and later the composer Barry de Vorcon dedicated the song "Tema o Nađa" to her...
In 1990, with the help of a friend, Nadja Komaneči finally managed to free herself from the new torture and finally start a free life. She settled in Montreal - the city where she touched the stars 16 years earlier.
In addition to Komaneča, competitors from the USSR, Neli Kim with three gold medals and Nikolai Andrianov with four of the most brilliant trophies, also achieved top results on the battlefields.
Japanese gymnast Shun Fujimoto demonstrated in a unique way how much desire to win prevailed in the competition of the best Olympians. He performed the circuit exercise with a broken knee and led his team to victory with a score of 9,7, but after the Games he coolly said that he would "never do it again".
Irena Ševinska from Poland won her seventh Olympic medal, a gold medal in the 400-meter race. During her rich career in five different disciplines (100, 200, 400, 4x400 meters and long jump) at the Olympics she won three gold, two silver and two bronze medals. She became the only athlete who held world records in 100, 200 and 400 meters.
The competitions on the athletics track were also "enhanced" by the Cuban Alberto Huantorena, who became the first runner to win the 400 and 800 meters at the same Games.
There were 88 athletes in the Yugoslav team who won eight medals (two gold, three silver and three bronze) in 14 sports.
The winners of the Games were the wrestler Momir Petković (Greco-Roman style) and Matija Ljubek in the canoe at 1.000 meters, the silver went to the boxer Tadija Kačar (middleweight), the wrestler Ivica Frgić (Greco-Roman) and the basketball players, while they returned with bronze boxer Ace Rusevski (light), Ljubek in a canoe at 500 meters and judoka Slavko Obadov (medium).
The famous generation of southern basketball, led by Krešimir Ćosić, Dražen Dalipagić, Mirza Delibašić, Dragan Kićanović... stopped in the final. At that time, however, the USA selection was indisputable, and in the match for the gold, they celebrated with a convincing 95:74.
The host of the Olympic Games did not meet expectations in the financial sense, but also in the competitive sense. Canada won only 11 medals, but also recorded the biggest failure in the history of the Games.
Namely, the country of the maple leaf became the only host that did not win gold since the Olympic Games existed. Neither five silver medals, nor six bronze medals were enough to improve the impression...
The Canadians were only competent to compete for medals in swimming (two silvers and all bronze) and to some extent in athletics. The honor of Canadian athletes was preserved by Greg Joy in the high jump, who won second place.
Great things in Montreal were made by Cuba. Athlete Alberto Huantorena won two golds (in races of 400 and 800 meters), boxers Ramon Duvalon, Andres Aldama and Sixto Soria won silver. Volleyball players and boxers Rolando Garbej and Luis Martinez won bronze.
The boxing competition was, however, dominated by the Americans, who presented the strongest boxing team in history in Montreal. Ray Sugar Leonard, Leon Spinks, Michael Spinks, Leo Randolph and Howard Davis won gold medals. In the continuation of their careers, all but Davis became professional world champions.
Competitors from the Eastern bloc - the Soviet Union (49 gold - 41 silver - 35 bronze) and East Germany, the famous GDR (40 - 25 - 25) had the most success in Montreal. The Americans were third (34 - 35 - 25), and the West Germans were fourth (10 - 12 - 17).
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