Olympic Videos & Pictures

[dcro 10,210]

That long dance segment was amazing. 

[Grassmarket 3,377]

3 hours ago, Griff88 said:

 

 

Just found the complete Moscow 1980 parade of nations in good quality! 

 

Great Cold War memories.  I particularly love the bit with Brezhnev giving the official welcome.  He literally cannot say six words without reading them out & making a mistake.

[dcro 10,210]

2 minutes ago, Grassmarket said:

Great Cold War memories.  I particularly love the bit with Brezhnev giving the official welcome.  He literally cannot say six words without reading them out & making a mistake.

 

Thanks. Now I can't unsee that.

[Grassmarket 3,377]

1 minute ago, dcro said:

 

Thanks. Now I can't unsee that.

Can you imagine what the four hour speeches were like?  People would be volunteering for the Gulag. 

[hckošice 14,787]

 

and today is exactly 40 years from the only Olympic team sports Gold for Czechoslovakia.

 

The 2nd of August 1980 former Czechoslovakia defeated in the last Moscow 1980 event the former   1-0 in the Men Football tournament to win the only and single Olympic Team sports gold in the history of the country (Until Nagano 1998 Ice Hockey triumph of Czech Rep.) 

 

The team played its group stage in former Leningrad (St. Petersburg) beating 3-0 and despite two later quite disappointing ties against 1-1 and 0-0 won the group to stay in Leningrad for the quarterfinal where they eliminated 3-0. In the semifinal in Moscow Czechoslovakia defeated the former 2-0 to qualify for the gold medal match

 

 

Interesting enough, Despite winning only this single gold Czechoslovakia won in total 14 medals in team sports at the Olympics in its history (1920-1992)

 

2 in Football  (1-1-0)

 

Gold in Moscow 1980 and Silver in Tokyo 1964. Fun fact Czechoslovakia was in the Gold medal match also during its olympic debut in Antwerp 1920. But the history mention the team as DSQ. After the players left the field in protest against the refereeing in favor of host Belgium during the final the team was DSQ and removed from the results.

 

1964 Silver medalists, the only Czechoslovakian team in history of the Olympics in whom the Slovak born athletes were in majority (9 of them)

Spoiler

 

2 in  Volleyball  (0-1-1)

 

Silver iin Tokyo 1964 at the Volleyball Olympics debut and bronze in Mexico City 1968. One of the best ever Slovak Volleyball players Bohumil Golian played in both toutrnaments. He was even honored being the flag bearer of Czechoslovakia at the Mexico City 1968 Opening Ceremony parade of nations

 

Spoiler

 

 

1 in  Handball  (0-1-0)

 

Silver in Munich 1972 with 3 Slovak players the team lost to in the final 16-21

 

1 in  Field Hockey  (0-1-0)

 

Silver in Moscw 1980, Already wrote about tis total WTF miracle, a team with 3 Slovak girls was send to Moscow only as a replacement of many other decling replacements at the very last momet. the girls were literally "collected" just a couple of days before the games began. many of them were at work or on vacations, they came, and returned home with a shocking silver. Despite this success, the sport never succeed to gain any particular popularity or attention in both countries sadly. And is still almost inexistant.

 

4 in  Ice Hockey  (0-4-4)

 

The most popular and national sport in both countries. Sadly Czechoslovakia never won Gold at the Olympics (a triumph that later achieved Czech Republic in the memorable Nagano 1998 tournament of the century)

 

First bronze already in Antwerp 1920 during the Summer Olympics as the best team behind the giants from and . There were no Slovaks in the team tough.

in the first post WWII WOG in 1948 St- Moritz the team won Silver (lost gold) only via goal average rule, the team shockingly tied with 0-0 but the overall goal average of the tournament ended in favor of the Canadians 69-5 to 80-18 for Czechoslovakia). The team was led by One of the biggest star of Slovak hockey history Ladislav Troják.

In Innsbruck 1964 Another Bronze with 3 Slovak players in the team including huge stars like one of the best world goalies Vladimír Dzurilla and top winger Jozef Golonka.

In Grenoble 1968 another silver again with 3 slovaks including Dzurilla and Golonka, the team lost the gold in the last day after the 2-2 draw with Sweden. Was a real shame to lost this such way a day after the heroic win over the 15 years unbeaten . A match that had a huge political background in the country followig the unfortunate 1968 politic affars...was full of blood and dirty provocations,

with one of the most famous Golonka putting his ear to the ice after scoring the winning goal as if listening to the Russians not turn off the gas

 

Spoiler

 

 

In Sapporo 1972 another Bronze disappointement and 3rd medal for the slovak goalie of history Vlado Dzurilla.

1976 the Innsbruck silver without slovaks in the team.

Silver in Sarajevo 1984. One of the best TCH hockey teams in history led by Slovak elite line Vincent Lukáč-Dárius Rusnák-Igor Liba were among the top favs for gold, sadly the lost the most important final game to USSR 0-2 and finshed nce again with Silver.

and the last Czechoslovak Team sport Olympic medal in Albertville 1992. a Bronze won also by slovaks in the team like Robert Švehla, Igor Liba, Peter Veselovský or the goalie Jaromír Dragan

 

[dcro 10,210]

Finally rewatched 16 Days of Glory (1984), for the first time in about 10 years or so. That was Bud Greenspan at the height of his powers. Wonderful Olympic film. Didn't mind its length (4.5 hours) at all.

 

I am almost glad that the Olympics got postponed, since Olympic Channel probably never would have uploaded these films otherwise.

[dcro 10,210]

Visions of Eight (Munich 1972) becomes my favorite artistic Olympic film. Not surprising, given that it was a collaboration of some star directors.

Meanwhile, Beijing 2008 film is trash. It's literally almost 2 hours of nothing. For a film which claims that over 60,000 hours of Olympic footage was created, it sure had a lot of narration happening off-screen.

[Olympian1010 7,951]

This is one of my dream jobs. NBC makes these montages/intros before each Olympics (plays right before Opening Ceremony coverage). I would love to write/produce these.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Olympian1010 7,951]

Came accords this today 

 

I’ve always wanted to see some Speed Skiing coverage from the 1992 Winter Olympics, and now I have 

[Vojthas 949]

1 hour ago, Olympian1010 said:

Came accords this today 

 

I’ve always wanted to see some Speed Skiing coverage from the 1992 Winter Olympics, and now I have 

So, they used the abnormal mph to present the results instead of a the one and only correct kph?