Archery •
Tomi Poikolainen of Finland, who had not finished any of the previous three days' shooting higher than fourth, came from fourth on the last day to win the men's archery competition, scoring 2455 points. He won gold just three points ahead of a Soviet athlete. • The women's archery gold was won by Ketevan Losaberidze (USSR), who was also the European, Soviet and world champion. • The women's archery silver was won by Natalia Butuzova (USSR), who had set nine national records and three world records in 1979. • The U.S. archery team was one of the strongest ever fielded, but due to the boycott, the team never had a chance to prove itself. This team held every record and featured 1976 Olympic champion Darrell O. Pace, who was averaging 100 points more than the winning score in Moscow at the time.
Athletics . The athlete 563 in the foreground is
Koh Chun-son from North Korea • Ethiopian
Miruts Yifter won the 5,000 metres and 10,000 metres athletics double, emulating
Lasse Virén's 1972 and 1976 performances. • "I have a 90% chance of winning the 1,500 metres," wrote
Steve Ovett in an article for one of Britain's Sunday papers just before the start of the Olympics. After he won the 800 metres Olympic gold, beating world-record holder
Sebastian Coe, Ovett stated he would not only win the 1,500 metres race, but would beat the world record by as much as four seconds. Ovett had won 45 straight 1,500 metres races since May 1977. In contrast, Coe had competed in only eight 1,500 metres races between 1976 and 1980. Coe won the race, holding off Ovett in the final lap, who finished third. • Aided by the absence of American opposition,
Allan Wells beat Cuban
Silvio Leonard to become the first Briton since 1924 to win the Olympic 100 metres race. •
Gerd Wessig, who had made the East German team only two weeks before the Games, easily won the gold medal with a high jump. This was 9 cm higher than he had ever jumped before. • In the 1980 Olympic women's long jump competition, Soviet jumper
Tatiana Kolpakova bested her compatriots and other competitors by setting a new Olympic record of . • Poland's
Władysław Kozakiewicz won the pole vault with a jump of – only the second pole vaulting world record to be established during an Olympics. The previous time had been at the
Antwerp Olympics 1920. • In the long jump competition, three women beat for the first time ever in one competition. •
Waldemar Cierpinski of the
German Democratic Republic (
East Germany) won his second consecutive
marathon gold. •
Bärbel Wöckel, also of the GDR, winner of the 200 metres in
Montreal, became the first woman to retain the title. •
Tatiana Kazankina (USSR) retained the 1,500m title that she had won in Montreal. • In the women's pentathlon,
Nadiya Tkachenko (USSR) scored 5,083 points to become the first athlete to exceed 5,000 points in the event during Olympic competition, winning gold. • For the first time in Olympic history, all eight male participants in the long jump final beat the mark of . •
Lutz Dombrowski (GDR) won the long jump gold. His was the longest jump recorded at sea level and he became only the second ever to jump further than . • In the triple jump final,
Viktor Saneyev (USSR; present day-
Georgia), who won gold at Mexico, Munich and Montreal, won silver behind
Jaak Uudmäe (USSR; present day-
Estonia) and ahead of Brazil's world record holder João Carlos de Oliveira. Both de Oliveira and Australia's Ian Campbell produced long jumps, but they were declared fouls by the officials and not measured; in Campbell's case, his longest jump was ruled a "scrape foul", with his trailing leg touching the track during the jump. Campbell insisted that he had not scraped, and it was alleged the officials intentionally threw out his and de Oliveira's best jumps to favor the Soviets, similarly to a number of other events. •
Yuriy Sedykh (USSR) won gold in the hammer throw event. Four of his six throws broke the world record of 80m. No hammer thrower in the world had ever achieved this before. As in Montreal, the USSR won gold, silver and bronze in this event. •
Evelin Jahl (GDR), the 1976 Olympic champion, won discus gold again. She won with a new Olympic record – – having been undefeated since Montreal. • Cuba's
María Caridad Colón won the women's javelin, setting a new Olympic record. •
Sara Simeoni of Italy won the women's high jump, setting a new Olympic record. She had won a silver in the 1976 Games and would go on to win a silver in the 1984 Games. • In track-and-field, six world records, eighteen Olympic records and nine best results of the year were registered. • In women's track and field events, either a world or Olympic record was broken in almost every event. •
Daley Thompson of
Great Britain won the gold in the Decathlon. He won gold again at the Los Angeles Olympics. • Soviet
Dainis Kula won gold in the men's javelin. He also had the best sum total of throws, showing his consistency. He finished ahead of his teammate Alexander Makarov. • Polish gold medallist
pole vaulter
Władysław Kozakiewicz showed an obscene
bras d'honneur gesture in all four directions to the jeering Soviet public, causing an international scandal and almost losing his medal as a result. There were numerous incidents and accusations of Soviet officials using their authority to negate marks by opponents to the point that
IAAF officials found the need to look over the officials' shoulders to try to keep the events fair. There were also accusations of opening stadium gates to give Soviet athletes advantage, and causing other disturbances to opposing athletes.
Basketball • Basketball was one of the hardest hit sports due to the boycott. Though replacements were found, five men's teams including the defending Olympic Champion United States withdrew from the competition in addition to the US Women's team. • In the women's competition, the host Soviet Union won the competition beating Bulgaria for gold, Yugoslavia won bronze. • The men's competition featured only the second instance of the US Men's Basketball team not winning gold with the first one being in
Munich. Yugoslavia took home the gold beating Italy in the final. The hosts, Soviet Union, winners in 1972, won the bronze.
Boxing •
Teófilo Stevenson of Cuba became the first
boxer to win three consecutive Olympic titles in heavyweight, and indeed the only boxer to win the same event in three Games. (
László Papp from Hungary was the first boxer to win three titles). In boxing, Cuba won six gold, two silvers and two bronzes. • The
Val Barker Trophy is presented by the AIBA to the competitor adjudged to be the best stylist at the Games. The winner was
Patrizio Oliva of Italy, who won gold at light-welterweight.
Canoeing in
Krylatskoye •
Uladzimir Parfianovich of the
USSR won three gold medals in
canoeing. • Apart from the boycotted Los Angeles Olympics,
Birgit Fischer of
East Germany won medals in each Olympics from 1980 to 2004. In the 500 metres kayak singles, she won gold in Moscow, silver in
Seoul, gold in
Barcelona.
Cycling • Lothar Thoms of
East Germany won the 1,000-metre individual pursuit cycling gold, breaking the world record by nearly four seconds. • The winner of the bronze in that race was Jamaica's
David Weller who also broke the sixteen-year-old world record. • In the 4,000-metre team pursuit qualifying heats, new world indoor records were set eight times. • The 189-kilometer individual road race gold was won by
Sergei Sukhoruchenkov (
USSR). • The cycling team road race was won by the Soviet team as they had done in
Munich and
Montreal. • In cycling, world records were toppled 21 times.
Diving • As Aleksandr Portnov waited to do a 2 and 1/2 reverse somersault in the springboard final, cheers broke out in the adjoining swimming pool during the closing stages of
Vladimir Salnikov's world record breaking 1,500m swim. The diver delayed his start until the noise had subsided but, as he took his first steps along the board, even greater cheers broke out as Salnikov touched in under 15 minutes. Under the rules, Portnov, having started, could not stop before take-off. On protest to the Swedish referee G.Olander, he was allowed to repeat the dive, and went ahead again of Mexico's
Carlos Girón. Later protests by Mexico against the re-dive and by
East Germany that their
Falk Hoffmann wanted to re-dive after allegedly being disturbed by photographic flashlights were both turned down by
FINA. FINA President Javier Ostas stated that the decision taken by the Swedish referee was the "correct one". FINA assessed all the Olympic diving events and considers the judging to have been objective. Portnov remained the winner, with Giron taking silver and Cagnatto of Italy bronze. • Martina Jaschke (
East Germany) was fourth after the preliminary high dives, but came back to win gold on the second day of competition. • Irina Kalinina (
USSR) won gold in the springboard final. As a result of her ten dives in the preliminaries, she amassed a unique number of points: 478.86. In the previous four years, no diver had scored so many. • In this final, the Mexican judge A. Marsikal allowed
Karin Guthke (
East Germany) to re-take a dive.
Equestrian • In the individual show jumping event, Poland's
Jan Kowalczyk and the USSR's
Nikolai Korolkov each had 8 faults, but Kowalczyk won gold as his horse completed the course the quicker. Poland won the last of the 203 gold medals contested. • The oldest medalist at the Moscow Olympics was
Petre Rosca (Romania) in the dressage at 57 years 283 days.
Fencing • France took four gold medals in fencing. • In the team sabre fencing final, for the fifth Olympics in a row, Italy and the USSR met. The USSR won as they did in Tokyo, Mexico and Montreal, while Italy's silver was its only medal in fencing.
Football • The USSR won bronze.
Czechoslovakia won the gold medal beating German Democratic Republic (East Germany) 1:0 in the final. • The matches were played in Moscow and Leningrad (Russian SFSR), and some preliminary games were hosted by Kiev and Minsk, in the
Ukrainian SSR and
Byelorussian SSR respectively.
Gymnastics • Soviet gymnast
Alexander Dityatin won a medal in each of the eight gymnastics events, including three titles. He was the first athlete to win eight medals at an Olympics. He scored several 10s, the first perfect scores in men's gymnastics since
1924. •
Nikolai Andrianov, who had won gold on floor at both Munich and Montreal, was pipped this time by Roland Bruckner of East Germany. Andrianov retained the vault title he had won in Montreal. •
Zoltán Magyar (Hungary) retained the Olympic title on pommel horse that he had won in Montreal. He was also a three-time world champion and three-time European champion on this piece of apparatus. • In the team competition, the USSR won the gold medal for the eighth consecutive time, continuing the "gold" series that started in 1952. • In the women's gymnastics event finals, a Romanian gymnast medals on each piece of apparatus for the first time: • Balance Beam –
Nadia Comăneci (gold) • Floor –
Nadia Comăneci (gold) • Uneven Bar –
Emilia Eberle (silver) &
Melita Ruhn (bronze) • Vault –
Melita Ruhn (bronze) • Before the Los Angeles Olympics, the United States gymnastics federation proposed a change in the rules so that a head judge cannot interfere and meddle in the scoring of competitors.
Handball • In the men's event, East Germany beat the USSR 23–22 in the handball final. • In the women's tournament, the USSR won all its matches and retained the Olympic handball title. Yugoslavia and East Germany gained silver and bronze medal respectively.
Field hockey • Six countries competed in the women's field hockey:
Austria, India,
Poland,
Czechoslovakia,
USSR, and
Zimbabwe. The gold medal was won by the team of Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe did not learn it would get a place in the tournament until 35 days before the Games began, and chose its team only the weekend before the opening ceremony. None of their players had prior playing experience on an artificial surface. Soviet Union won bronze. • India won a record eighth title in men's field hockey. The Soviet Union won bronze.
Judo • The USSR topped judo with five medals (two gold, one silver and two bronze). France came second (two gold, one silver and a bronze) and East Germany came third (one gold and four bronze). A traditional powerhouse Japan was absent due to the boycott.
Modern pentathlon • In the modern pentathlon,
George Horvath (Sweden) recorded a perfect score in the pistol shoot. It had been achieved only once before in
1936.
Rowing •
East Germany dominated
rowing, winning eleven of the fourteen titles. The East German men won seven out of eight events, foiled from achieving a clean sweep by
Pertti Karppinen of Finland (who defended his Olympic title from
Montreal). East German women won four of their six events. • In the rowing eights with coxswain, the British team won silver just 0.74 seconds behind East Germany.
Sailing • The sailing event was held in
Tallinn,
Soviet-occupied Estonia. • Soviet sailor
Valentyn Mankin won a gold medal in "Star" class. He won Olympic champion titles in "
Finn" and "
Tempest" classes before, and remains the only sailor in Olympic history to win gold medals in three different classes .
Shooting • The three-day skeet shooting marathon was won by
Hans Kjeld Rasmussen of Denmark. • In the smallbore rifle, prone event, Hungarian
Károly Varga captured the gold and equalled the world record.
Swimming with her gold medal in 200 m swimming. •
Vladimir Salnikov (USSR) won three gold medals in swimming. He became the first man in history to break the 15-minute barrier in the 1500 metre freestyle, swimming's equivalent of breaking the four-minute mile. He missed the 1984 Games because of the boycott but won gold again in this event at Seoul 1988. • Salnikov also won gold in the 4 × 200 m relay and the 400m freestyle. In the 400m freestyle, he set a new Olympic record which was just eleven-hundredths of a second outside his own world record. • In the Montreal final of the 400m freestyle, the seventh and eighth place finalists finished in over four minutes. In Moscow sixteen swimmers finished in under four minutes and eight of them did not make the final. •
Duncan Goodhew of Great Britain won the 100 metres breaststroke. • Sweden's
Bengt Baron won gold in the 100 meter backstroke. • In the men's 4 × 100 metres medley relay, each of the eight teams taking part in the final broke its country's national record. • The first Australian gold since 1972 came in the 4 × 100 men's medley relay, with
Neil Brooks swimming the final leg, the Australians swam the second-fastest time in history. • East German women dominated the swimming events, winning nine of eleven individual titles, both the relays and setting 6 world records. They also won all three medals in six different races. In total they won 26 of the available 35 medals. As it was revealed later, their results were aided by the
state-sponsored doping system. •
Barbara Krause (East Germany) became the first woman to go under 55 seconds for the 100 m freestyle. • Backstroker
Rica Reinisch (East Germany) was 20th in the world rankings for 100m in 1979 and not in the top 100 for the 200 m. At the Olympics she broke the world records in both distances winning golds. • In the 100m butterfly,
Caren Metschuck (East Germany) beats her more experienced teammate
Andrea Pollack to win gold. •
Petra Schneider (East Germany) shaved three seconds off the world record in the 400m medley. • As in Montreal, the Soviet women made a clean sweep of the medals in the 200m breaststroke. The title in this event was won by
Lina Kačiušytė. •
Michelle Ford (Australia) won the 800m freestyle more than four seconds ahead of her East German rivals. • In swimming, 230 national, 22 Olympic and ten World records were set. • The youngest male gold medallist of these Olympics was Hungarian backstroke swimmer
Sándor Wladár at 17 years old.
Volleyball • The prominent nation in both volleyball competitions was the USSR; its teams won both golds.
Water polo • Hungary won a bronze medal in water polo. This continued their run of always winning a medal in this event since 1928.
Weightlifting • The standard of weightlifting was the highest in the history of the Olympics. There were eighteen senior world records, two junior world records, more than 100 Olympic records and 108 national records set. • The oldest of weightlifting's Olympic records – the snatch in the lightweight class set in 1964 – was bettered thirteen times. •
Yurik Vardanyan (USSR) became the first middleweight to total more than 400 kg, he won gold. • In the super heavyweight class,
Vasily Alexeyev (USSR) Olympic champion at Munich and Montreal, eight-time world champion, who in his career set 80 world records, failed to medal. • Soviet weightlifters won 5 golds. • The new category in weightlifting – up to 100 kg – was won by
Ota Zaremba of Czechoslovakia.
Wrestling • In Greco-Roman wrestling,
Ferenc Kocsis of Hungary was declared the winner of the 163 pound class when the defending champion Anatoly Bykov was disqualified for passivity. • Soviet wrestlers won 12 golds. ==Closing ceremony==