In the team sports, Canada won the women’s
3,000-meter relay in speed skating, with the U.S.
team taking silver. Canada started favorites in the ice
hockey but were beaten in the final by the UT. Can-
ada also gained the silver in the men’s 500-meter
speed skating relay.
The Summer Olympics For the twenty-fifth Olym-
piad, Barcelona, in the Catalonian region of Spain,
had been chosen over five other cities in an Interna-
tional Olympic Committee (IOC) meeting in 1986.
Catalonia was fittingly the birthplace of IOC presi-
dent Juan Antonio Samaranch. Some 169 nations
participated, a record number, and 9,356 athletes
competed: 6,652 men and 2,704 women. Thirty-two
sports were represented in 286 separate events. Base-
ball, badminton, and women’s judo were added as
new sports, and slalom canoeing returned after
twenty years. The demonstration sports were roller
hockey and tae kwon do as well as the local Spanish
sports of Basque pelote and Valencian pilota.
King Juan Carlos I of Spain presided over the
opening ceremony in the newly constructed Olym-
pic Stadium, and Spanish paraplegic archer Anto-
nio Rebollo shot a flaming arrow to ignite the Olym-
pic torch. The Olympic Oath was read by the veteran
Spanish sailor Luis Doreste Blanco. The theme song
“Barcelona” could only be played as part of a re-
corded travelogue, as Freddie Mercury (of the Brit-
ish rock band Queen), the song’s composer and
one of the singers, had recently died. The other
theme song, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Amigos para
Siempre” (always friends), was sung at the closing
ceremony.
As with the Winter Games, the former Soviet
team competed as the Unified Team using the
Olympic flag and anthem, while the Germans com-
peted as a single team. The breakup of Yugoslavia
presented difficulties for the constituent parts of
that country. Because of U.N. sanctions against their
country, Yugoslav athletes were allowed to compete
under the Olympic flag, but not their own. Newly in-
dependent Croatia and Slovenia, who had been in-
vited by the IOC to Albertville, made their Summer
Olympic debuts, while Bosnia and Herzegovina
competed for the first time. South Africa was able to
compete for the first time in several decades, the
IOC having decided the notorious apartheid policy
of that country had been dismantled sufficiently to
bring it into compliance with Olympic rules.
Under Samaranch, the financial basis of the
Olympics had been secured during the 1980’s by al-
lowing commercial sponsorship and sale of broad-
casting rights. This continued at the 1992 Summer
Olympics. The rules that sought to ensure that all
athletes were nonprofessionals were relaxed. In the
case of basketball, the International Basketball Fed-
eration (FIBA) allowed any professional to partici-
pate, and thus the United States was able to field its
“Dream Team” of leading professional basketball
players, easily securing the gold medal. Cycling and
soccer also eased the professional rules consider-
ably. After the 1988 drug scandal surrounding Cana-
dian sprinter Ben Johnson, drug testing was for the
first time rigorously monitored.Outstanding Performances Every Olympic Games
produces its crop of outstanding performances, sur-638 Olympic Games of 1992 The Nineties in America
Dream Team members Scottie Pippen (left), Michael Jordan, and
Clyde Drexler rejoice after defeating Croatia for the gold.(AP/
Wide World Photos)