Olympic memories

Yeh I remember that shhot me if u see me in a boat again.

Most of the classic ones from 1972 onwards (the first Olympics I can remember) - Ben Johnson (okay so he was outed 24 hours later but at the time it was off the scale in terms of 'WTF was that?'), Redgrave, Phelps, The Golden American Basketball team etc.

However, two less-well-known (I'm guessing) memories for me were Władysław Kozakiewicz winning the 1980 Olympic Pole Vault, despite the Russian crowd whistling his every vault. The competition dragged on for ages, with him and Volkov (the Russian) going up centimetre by centimetre. In the end Kozakiewicz won, turned round and gave the Russian crowd a huge single arm and fist salute (Google Images - you'll see what I mean!)

Secondly, Framz Klammer's win in the 1976 Innsbruck Men's Downhill. The single greatest downhill run ever IMO - on the edge of losing control throughout the entire run; never was a man more desperate and eyeballs out, risking everything in pursuit of Gold in front of his home crowd. Ron Pickering's commentary was pretty epic too.

The Mary Decker ,Zola Budd stands out,remember watching it in a Caravan site near Bognor Regis during
Goodwood week.
The Ovett ,Coe races. Daley Thompson and Ben Johnson's jaw dropping 100m win .

Mark Todd's two Olympic Individual Gold medals, in the three day eventing on Charisma, in 1984 & 1988.

2002 Short track speed skating 1000m final

and the 2006 Womens Snowboard X Final

are two that really stick out

Mens 4*400m in the 1991 WC (I know its not the Olympics) is GB's most iconic athletics moment for me

Can't think of a more iconic GB Olympic moment as Redgrave's fifth gold medal, which was such a close finish, even though I felt there was a sense that the result was never in doubt.

Munich massacre of'72.

I wasn't born at that time. Obviously watched the movie Munich which was wicked. But is that wat realy happened. Would love to know

From what I know the basic facts of the film are correct.

The Palestinian group Black September took the Israeli athletes hostage demanding that certain Palestinian prisoners were freed.

It all ended in bloodshed when the German authorities agreed to provide them with a plane to escape and then ambushed the terrorists. I'm think all the hostages were killed but remarkably not all of the terrorists were.

I think they ultimately escaped a few months later when some of their other members hijacked a plane and demanded they were handed over. I'm sure the last one of them only died fairly recently.

Nice 1 for educating me more. Wasn't around them times

Can't imagine that ever happning again.

Politics and sports should always be kept seperate

Biggest WOW for me was when Michael Johnson stopped the clock in the 200m final at a barely conceivable 19.32 in Atlanta. I think it was more than a third of a second inside his own fairly recent world record and at a time when hardly anyone could run under 19.9. I was stunned when the official result came out to see that Frankie Fredricks had run an astonishing 19.6 in second. Nobody even noticed, unluckiest athlete ever!

Michael Johnson always memorable but David Hemery in Mexico was great with John Sherwood grabbing a medal behind him.

who cares who's third

A round and basically fat guy called Paea Wolfgramm from Tonga knocking out a very tall and heavily built Cuban in the Quarter Finals of the super heavy weight boxing in 1996.

It's a bit embarassing but it has to be Mary Peters in the 1972 olympics pentathalon 200 metres


It's the bit where the late great Ron Pickering spoke for a nation and screams

"C'MON MARY,C'MON!"

still brings a lump to the throat

Dave Wottle-----last to first mens 800 metres just like Bula---Munich I think---then blew it in the 1500 heats came to late and failed to make the final

'and....it's...Wilkie!'-1st GB gold at 1st Olympics I remember (Montreal)