participated in the Olympic Games for the first time
in thirty years. China had been a member of the In-
ternational Olympic Committee (IOC) prior to the
Communist takeover of the country in 1949. Soon
thereafter, the Communists formed a new National
Olympic Committee, arguing that they were the le-
gitimate and legal authority over all Chinese sports.
However, the Nationalist Chinese, who had fled to
Taiwan, maintained that they were the leaders of all
international sports in China. The IOC and the
Communist and Nationalist Chinese debated this is-
sue for almost a decade. Then, in 1958, believing
that the IOC was not going to grant it control over
the Olympic program in Taiwan, China withdrew
from the IOC and the various international federa-
tions that governed individual sports. The Chinese
did not win any medals at Lake Placid, but their re-
turn to the Olympics was important for the IOC be-
cause the absence of China—which represented one
of the world’s largest populations—had many IOC
members believing that the Olympics was than less a
truly international event.
The United States won six gold medals, but one
team and one man were responsible for them. The
men’s hockey team won one, while speed skater
Eric Heiden stood atop the medal podium after all
five events in which he participated. What made
Heiden’s feats even more amazing was that he set
Olympic records in all five distances. He capped off
his year by being named the winner of the James E.
Sullivan Award, given to the top amateur athlete
in the United States. The twenty-one-year-old from
Wisconsin had ensured his place in the annals of
great Olympians. A few years later, Heiden demon-
strated his athletic prowess and versatility when he
participated in the preeminent event in cycling, the
Tour de France.
There seemed to be no question that the Ameri-
can figure skating pair of Tai Babilonia and Randy
Gardner should have won a medal, probably gold;
they were the reigning world champions in their
event, and it seemed that they were the team to end
the Soviet Union’s domination of the event. How-
ever, Gardner suffered a leg injury during a pre-
Olympic practice, and then he aggravated it just
prior to the Games. As a stunned crowd watched—
both in the stadium and on television—he tried to
warm up but could not. He fell while attempting to
complete a jump; then he almost dropped his part-
ner while trying to lift her. Moments later, an an-
nouncement indicating that Gardner and Babilonia
were pulling out of the competition was made. She
cried as she left the ice. A few days later, Irina
Rodnina and her husband Alexander Zaitsev won
the gold medal for the second straight time. The win
gave Rodnina her third consecutive gold medal in
that event. Rodnina also won ten World Figure Skat-
ing Championships is a row in pairs figure skating.
Another American skater, Linda Fratianne, also
entered Lake Placid with a reasonable expectation
of gold. However, like Babilonia and Gardner, she
came up short on the Olympic stage. Fratianne had
won four consecutive U.S. championships in ladies’
figure skating; she also had finished first at the
World Figure Skating Championships in 1977 and- Her rival, East German Anett Pötzsch, nar-
rowly won the gold medal. Pötzsch became the world
champion in 1978, preventing Fratianne from being
a three-time winner at that competition. Perhaps still
suffering from a letdown, Fratianne later finished
third at the 1980 world championships. She became
a professional skater soon after.
Another four-time U.S. champion, Charles Tick-
ner, also found little luck in Lake Placid. He finished
third in the men’s figure skating event. Britain’s
Robin Cousins won the gold medal.
Soviets and Their Allies Dominate in Moscow The
Olympic showcase left Lake Placid in late February.
Its summer showcase began five months later in Mos-
cow. More than five thousand athletes representing
eighty nations competed. Because of the U.S.-led
boycott, this was the fewest number of nations at a
Summer Olympics in twenty-four years. No U.S. ath-
lete took part in the Summer Games, ensuring that
the host Soviet Union and its allies would be without
serious competition in many of the events in which
they took part. The results bore out that fact: Soviet
athletes won more medals (80 gold, 195 total) than
athletes from any other country.
Perhaps the most impressive Soviet Olympian was
men’s gymnast Alexander Dityatin, who took home
eight medals (three gold), more than any other ath-
lete in a single Games. Soviet swimmer Vladimir
Salnikov won three gold medals. His best perfor-
mance came in the 1,500-meter freestyle, in which
he became the first person to swim that race in
less than fifteen minutes. Soviet canoeist Uladzimir
Parfianovich also won three gold medals in his sport.
Soviet women also fared well, with gymnasts Natalia726 Olympic Games of 1980 The Eighties in America