REWIND–where I left off yesterday:  Okay now that I’ve whet your appetites, tomorrow I will return with my highlights from the 1976-1984 Olympics.  But, in the meantime, please join in the discussion and leave your comments below.

Alright, on to the competition.  My favorite olympic sports have always been swimming, gymnastics, diving and track and field.  And, in recent years tennis (because of the Williams sisters), synchronized swimming (which my husband says is not a sport…hmmm but it looks nice…and requires grace and skill…) and volleyball. 

So what happened in 1976–

• Olympics were held in Montreal, Canada.
• At only 14 years of age, Nadia Comenici scored seven perfect 10 scores and went on to win 3 gold medals.  Nope she wasn’t American (Russian) but it was a feat worthy of recognition.  In fact, no one had ever scored a perfect ten before, so when they flashed her score it showed up as 1.00.
• Five American boxers – Sugar Ray Leonard, Leon Spinks, Michael Spinks, Leo Randolph and Howard Davis Jr. won gold medals in boxing. This has been often called the greatest Olympic boxing team the United States ever had, and, out of the five American gold medalists in boxing, all but Davis went on to become professional world champions.

1980–Held in Moscow, Russia but because politics got in da way (Carter another bone head move on your part…sigh) and because the US boycotted the Olympics many talented, young athletes lost the opportunity to compete for the gold.

1984–

• Olympics held in Los Angeles.
• Was living in Houston at the time, but returned to LA for the summer Olympics, especially the opening ceremonies.  One of my girlfriends was in the opening act and it was so much fun to be in town to watch her make history, cheer her on and hang out with her and the rest of my college buds.
• It was the first Olympics for Carl Lewis, and for many watching him was reminiscent of Jesse Owens; Lewis won four gold medals–three for sprinting and one for the Long Jump.
• It was the year of the women:  Mary Lou Retton was the first non-Eastern European female to win the gymnastics’s all around; First women’s marathon was held and American Joan Benoit won; synchronized swimming and rhymatic gymnastics were added; Mary Decker wanted to deck the hell out of GB’s Zola Budd.  Decker collided with Budd (who was in the lead) fell down and couldn’t get up.  When Budd went to apologize…Decker told her…Don’t bother.  Rotflmao.

1988–Pictures are worth a thousand words.

•  It was an upset–I ain’t mad at the brotha…just wish he won the gold for America.    Anthony Nesty of Suriname wins his country’s first Olympic medal by winning the 100 m butterfly, scoring an upset victory over Matt Biondi by .01 of a second (thwarting Biondis attempt ^[12] of breaking Mark Spitz’ record seven golds in one Olympic event); he is also the first and up to date, only black person to win swimming gold.^[13] (Source)
• Did anyone remember when Greg Louganis hit his head on the diving board during the preliminaries?  He was performing a reverse 2 1/2 pike when he hit his head and was thought to have suffered a concussion.  Guess he didn’t; later he came back and repeated the same dive in the finals.  He achieved an almost perfect score and went on to win the gold.  While Louganis will be remembered as a terrific athlete he did cause controversy years later when he revealed that he was gay and HIV positive when he performed in the 1988 Olympics.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

What are some of your most memorable Olympic highlights for the 1976-1988 timeframe.

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