OT - Most Memorable Olympic Moment

I always watch the Olympics but I’m not sure I have a most memorable moment. When I was a boy we visited family in Salt Lake City and I can remember my uncle Greg gushing over Mary Lou Retton.

From the last Olympics, I remember that mousy voiced girl who did the vault on a bum leg.

Mostly from track and field (cause that’s my former sport). Might also have added a few from the winter Olympics, but the ones I can still remember were very exciting while they happened but pale a little bit as the years go by.

Cathy Freeman lighting the Olympic flame in Sidney (there was a slight technical glitch, but the atmosphere and the way to do it was the best ever, including Beijing). Then going on to win her 400m competition under the immense pressure of her whole people was an amazing feat.

Very memorable, albeit infamous was also the 100m in Seoul, with Ben Johnson beating Carl Lewis, and then being disqualified for drug use. I was about ten years old back then, and that series of events has changed my perception about sports forever. The innocence of fair competition between all athletes was destroyed.

Greg Louganis hitting his head on the diving board (ouch, ouch, ouch), and still winning gold overall.

The long jump: Carl Lewis vs. Mike Powell. Maybe the most dramatic showdown ever between two great track and field athletes was in 1991 at the world championships (when Powell topped Bob Beamon’s impossible world record, standing to this day), so five years later in Atlanta 1996 this rematch was one of the highlights and I was waiting for it for days. At the end, Powell injured himself and Lewis won his last gold, but it was still great.

Dieter Baumann winning the 5000m in Barcelona out of an impossible position in an unforgettable spurt against superior competition from Kenya and Ethiopia deemed unbeatable because they slowed the race down too much. The final lap in pretty bad video quality, but you can get the atmosphere from the live announcer and the athlete going crazy ;-)

Oh, and completely out of competition: Getting to know Franziska Van Almsick, a beautiful, funny and outspoken Olympic swimmer (multiple medal winner in Olympics and World Championships, so she is a highly successful athlete and not “just” a model). My personal Nicholas Batum moment (greetings to BlazerFan1, and apologies to my current girlfriend). She fell a little bit too much in love with the Angelina Jolie style of body decoration since then, but is still working as a TV analyst and more enjoyable than any basketball sideline reporter. Apparently she didn’t make that much money in her career though, since she can only afford used swimsuits and not the new Speedo Sharkskins.

Dan Jansen, perennial nice guy and record setter, yet without a medal to his name, fails again to medal in his strongest event, the 500. Not favored in the 1000, yet somehow pulls a new world record and gold medal out of it. (speed skating if the name doesn’t ring a bell.)

Kerri Strug and the entire women’s gymnastic team from that year is another strong memory.

The joy of seeing “old man” Carl Lewis win another long jump medal turn to shame as he demands to be installed on the 4×100 relay simply to increase his medal count.

Who can forget the whole Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding affair?

Definitely the Dream Team and those 65 point blowouts.

Rulon Gardner defeats the great Alexander Karelin…and then fades into anonymity.

...and lastly, when John Candy pulled himself from a drunken stupor to lead a ragtag bunch of Jamaican…oh, not the real Olympics…but not a bad movie either.

... is going on the list.

Jesse Owens telling Hitler that he’s a jerk and winning 4 gold medals in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.

It’s easily the 1980 hockey team in Lake Placid.

I didn’t watch hockey at all up until then, but for some reason I watched every game faithfully. Watching that team beat the Russians – one of the top 3 most memorable sports experiences of my life.

On a side note, I eagerly anticipated the release of “Miracle” on DVD several years ago, thinking that surely one of the bonus features would be the game itself. You can imagine my disappointment when it wasn’t included. Will anyone ever release a copy of that game?

of Swiss competitor Gabriele Andersen-Scheiss in the 1984 marathon. She’s the one who entered the stadium for the final lap suffering from heat exhaustion. Here’s an excerpt from Charlie Lovett’s Olympic Marathon:

“The crowd gasped in horror as Andersen-Scheiss staggered onto the track, her torso twisted, her right arm straight and her left arm limp, her right knee strangely stiff. She waved away medical personnel who rushed to help her knowing that, if they touched her, she, like Dorando Pietri seventy-six years earlier, would be disqualified. For nearly six minutes Andersen-Scheiss hobbled around the track, occasionally stopping and holding her head. Doctors watched her carefully and determined she was in no immediate danger. She collapsed over the finish line in thirty-seventh place into the arms of waiting medics.”

I saw something similar happen in a track meet at UofO in 1980 in the men’s 5,000 or 10,000 meter race. The runner began cramping, duck-walking, and stumbling during the final lap and collapsed on the stretch. Two track assistants ran over to help him and the crowd began screaming Leave him alone! Don’t touch him! The assistants stopped short and looked at the crowd with a shocked expression. My friend and I were also shocked. It was almost scary, like being at the Roman Coliseum 2,000 years ago with a bunch of angry drunks. The runner tried to stand and couldn’t, so he literally crawled the final 80 yards, where he received a big hand from the bloodthirsty fans.

(in spite of TIH’s assertation that I was in Berlin in 1936) is Peggy Fleming in her chartreuse dress.

Dick Fosbury using the Fosbury Flop to win the gold in ‘68. I wasn’t in OR at the time, but being from the NW was almost as good as being from WA.

I remember specifically the men’s gymnastics from ‘84 – of course they didn’t have the Russian competition that would have made a difference in the outcome, but I watched every minute. And then Lionel Ritchie winding up the closing ceremonies singing “All Night Long” for what seemed like all night … I still get a great rush when I hear that song.

Ali lighting the torch in 1996 was pretty amazing, and one of the few moments in Olympic history that actually moved me (in my lifetime, which only covers 6 Summer Games). Seeing a man who used to be on top of the world, an icon to millions of people reduced to some kind of deformed physical specimen rise up one more time and be a symbol of inspiration was some serious shit.

Even in retrospect, it seems unbelievable that terrorism of this magnitude could occur at the Olympics. Everything about it - the lax security, the hostage situation, the botched rescue attempt - seemed surreal. I was absolutely glued to the TV, and Jim McKay’s voice still echoes in my mind. I was a young ‘un then, and I lost a good deal of my innocence over the course of a few days.

Michael Johnson obliterating the 200M world record in Atlanta in 1996

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6SsX61igBE

But, man, Lezak’s finish in that 400 relay the other night was flippin’ incredible!

should be added to the list…that was an EPIC finish. Beat the shit talking frenchies.