Olympics Facts – 55 Interesting Facts About Olympics
Fun Facts About the Olympics
However Berlin Games is most remembered for Owens’s four gold medals.
The two opposing sides in the Cold war, Soviet Union and US have always used the forum of Olympics to score brownie points in the battle of one up-man ship.
The US and its allies boycotted the Moscow Olympics in 1980 in protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
The Soviet Union retaliated with a boycott of the Los angles games in 1984 and was joined by 14 Eastern Bloc nations.
Only Romania did not follow the Soviet diktat and attended the 1984 Los Angles games.
The 21st Olympic Games in Montreal was in news for the withdrawal of 25 African nations who were protesting at New Zealand’s sporting links with South Africa.
The 1956 Melbourne Games was boycotted by Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden over Soviet invasion of Hungary
The same year Egypt, Lebanon, and Iraq boycotted over the Suez crisis.
People’s Republic of China (PRC) boycotted the Olympics for 32 years over alleged participation of Taiwan as a separate nation for 32 years, and only returned to the Games in 1984.
The 1988 Seoul Games North Korea refused to attend the Games in South Korea after they were not named as a co-host. Ethiopia and Cuba also boycotted out of solidarity with North Korea.
