1968 Summer Olympics

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Games of the XIX Olympiad
1968 Mexico emblem.svg
Host city Mexico City, Mexico
Nations participating 112
Athletes participating 5,530
(4,750 men, 780 women)
Events 172 in 20 sports
Opening ceremony October 12
Closing ceremony 27 October
Officially opened by President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz
Athlete's Oath Pablo Garrido
Olympic Torch Norma Enriqueta Basilio de Sotelo
Stadium Estadio Olímpico Universitario

The 1968 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XIX Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Mexico City, Mexico, in October 1968.

These were the first Olympic Games to be staged in Latin America, the first to be staged in a Spanish-speaking country, and the first to be staged in a developing country. They were also the third Games to be held in autumn, after the 1956 Games in Melbourne and the 1964 Games in Tokyo. The Mexican Student Movement of 1968 happened concurrently and the Olympic Games were correlated to the government's response.

Catering for the event was handled by Cesar Balsa in participation with ARA Inc. serving 10,000 athletes 30,000 meals a day.[1]

Contents

Host city selection [edit]

Opening of the 1968 Summer Olympic Games at the Estadio Olímpico Universitario in Mexico City

On October 18, 1963, at the 60th IOC Session in Baden-Baden, West Germany, Mexico City finished ahead of bids from Detroit, Buenos Aires and Lyon to host the Games.[2]

1968 Summer Olympics bidding result[3]
City Country Round 1
Mexico City  Mexico 30
Detroit  United States 14
Lyon  France 12
Buenos Aires  Argentina 2

Olympic torch relay [edit]

The 1968 torch relay recreated the route taken by Christopher Columbus to the New World, journeying from Greece through Italy and Spain (including Barcelona, which hosted the 1992 Summer Games) to El Salvador and then on to Mexico.

American sculptor James Metcalf, an expatriate in Mexico, won the commission to forge the Olympic torch for the 1968 Summer Games.[4]

Highlights [edit]

  • In the medal award ceremony for the men's 200 meter race, African-American athletes Tommie Smith (gold) and John Carlos (bronze) took a stand for civil rights by raising their black-gloved fists and wearing black socks in lieu of shoes. The Australian Peter Norman, who had run second, wore an American "civil rights" badge as support to them on the podium. As punishment, the IOC banned Smith and Carlos from the Olympic Games for life, and Norman was left off Australia's Olympic team in 1972.
  • The high elevation of Mexico City, at 2,240 m (7,350 ft) above sea level, influenced many of the events, particularly in track and field. No Summer Olympic Games before or since have been held at high elevation. Although a performance reducer for endurance athletes, the thin air contributed to many record-setting jumps, leaps, vaults, and throws, as well as all of the men's track events of 400 meters and less. As a reminder of this fact, one of the promotional articles of these Olympics was a small metallic box labeled "Aire de México" (Air of Mexico), that was "Especial para batir récords" (Special for breaking records).
  • In addition to high elevation, this was the first Olympics to use a synthetic all-weather surface for track and field events; the "Tartan" surface was originally developed by 3M for horse racing, but didn't catch on. The tracks at previous Olympics were conventional cinder.
  • For the first time, East and West Germany competed as separate teams, after being forced by the IOC to compete as a combined German team in 1956, 1960, and 1964. Beethoven's Ode to Joy was played when East and West Germany arrived in the stadium.
  • Al Oerter of the U.S. won his fourth consecutive gold medal in the discus to become only the second athlete to achieve this feat in an individual event, and the first in track & field (athletics).
  • Bob Beamon of the U.S. lept 8.90 m (29.2 ft) in the long jump, an incredible 55 cm (22 in) improvement over the previous world record. It remains the Olympic record and stood as the world record for 23 years, until broken by American Mike Powell in 1991. American athletes Jim Hines and Lee Evans also set long-standing world records in the 100 m and 400 m, respectively.
  • In the triple jump, the previous world record was improved five times by three different athletes. Viktor Saneev won the first of three successive gold medals in this event. He won silver in 1980.
  • Dick Fosbury of the U.S. won the gold medal in the high jump using his unconventional Fosbury flop technique, which quickly became the dominant technique in the event.
  • Věra Čáslavská of Czechoslovakia won four gold medals in gymnastics.
  • Debbie Meyer of the U.S. became the first swimmer to win three individual gold medals, in the 200, 400 and 800 m freestyle events. The 800 m was a new long-distance event for women. Meyer was only 16 years old, a student at Rio Americano High School in Sacramento, California. Meyer was the first of several American teenagers to win the 800 m.
  • American swimmer Charlie Hickcox won three gold medals (200m IM, 400m IM, 4x100m medley relay) and one silver medal (100m backstroke).
  • The introduction of doping tests resulted in the first disqualification because of doping: Swedish pentathlete Hans-Gunnar Liljenwall was disqualified for alcohol use (he drank several beers just prior to competing).
  • John Stephen Akhwari of Tanzania became internationally famous after finishing the marathon, in last place, despite a dislocated knee.
  • This was the first of three Olympic participations by Jacques Rogge. He competed in yachting and would later become the eighth president of the IOC.
  • Norma Enriqueta Basilio de Sotelo of Mexico became the first woman to light the Olympic cauldron with the Olympic flame.
  • It was the first games at which there was a significant African presence in men's distance running. Africans won at least one medal in all running events from 800 meters to the marathon, and in so doing they set a trend for future games. Most of these runners came from high-altitude areas of countries like Kenya and Ethiopia, and they were well-prepared for the 2240 m elevation of Mexico City.
  • It was the first games where the closing ceremony was transmitted in color to all the world.

Controversies [edit]

Tlatelolco massacre [edit]

Main article: Tlatelolco massacre

Black Power salute [edit]

Main article: 1968 Olympics Black Power salute

On October 16, 1968, black sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos, the gold and bronze medalists in the men's 200-meter race, took their places on the podium for the medal ceremony wearing black socks without shoes and civil rights badges, lowered their heads and each defiantly raised a black-gloved fist as the Star Spangled Banner was played. Both of them were members of the Olympic Project for Human Rights.

Some people (particularly IOC president Avery Brundage) felt that a political statement had no place in the international forum of the Olympic Games. In an immediate response to their actions, Smith and Carlos were suspended from the U.S. team by Brundage and banned from the Olympic Village. Those who opposed the protest said the actions disgraced all Americans. Supporters, on the other hand, praised the men for their bravery.

Peter Norman, the Australian sprinter who came second in the 200 m race, and Martin Jellinghaus, a member of the German bronze medal-winning 4x400-meter relay team, also wore Olympic Project for Human Rights badges at the games to show support for the suspended American sprinters. Norman's actions resulted in a reprimand, his absence from the following Olympic Games in Munich (despite easily making the qualifying time) and a failure of his national association to invite him to join other Australian medallists at the opening ceremony for the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. Smith and Carlos acted as pallbearers at his funeral in 2006[1][2].

Věra Čáslavská [edit]

In another incident, while standing on the medal podium after the balance beam event final, Czechoslovakian gymnast Věra Čáslavská quietly turned her head down and away during the playing of the Soviet national anthem. The action was Čáslavská's silent protest against the recent Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and was repeated when she accepted her medal for her floor exercise routine. While Čáslavská's countrymen supported her actions and her outspoken opposition to Communism (she had publicly signed and supported Ludvik Vaculik's "Two Thousand Words" manifesto), the new regime responded by banning her from both sporting events and international travel for many years.

Venues [edit]

Main article: Venues of the 1968 Summer Olympics

Medals awarded [edit]

See the medal winners, ordered by sport:

Demonstration sports [edit]

The organizers declined to hold a judo tournament at the Olympics, even though it had been a full-medal sport four years earlier. This was the last time judo was not included in the Olympic games.

Calendar [edit]

 ●  Opening ceremony     Event competitions  ●  Event finals     Exhibition gala  ●  Closing ceremony
Date October
12th
Sat		 13th
Sun		 14th
Mon		 15th
Tue		 16th
Wed		 17th
Thu		 18th
Fri		 19th
Sat		 20th
Sun		 21st
Mon		 22nd
Tue		 23rd
Wed		 24th
Thu		 25th
Fri		 26th
Sat		 27th
Sun
Athletics ● ● ●
● ●		 ● ●
● ●		 ● ● ●
● ● ● ●		 ● ● ●
● ● ●		 ● ●
● ● ●		 ● ● ● ● ●
● ● ● ●
Basketball ●
Boxing ● ● ●
● ● ● ●
● ● ● ●
Canoeing ● ● ●
● ● ● ●
Cycling ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Diving ● ● ● ●
Equestrian ● ● ● ● ● ●
Fencing ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Field hockey ●
Football (soccer) ●
Gymnastics ● ● ● ● ● ●
● ●		 ● ● ●
● ● ●
Modern pentathlon ● ●
Rowing ● ● ● ●
● ● ●
Sailing ● ●
● ● ●
Shooting ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Swimming ● ● ● ●
● ●		 ●
● ●		 ●
● ●		 ●
● ●		 ● ●
● ●		 ● ●
● ●		 ●
● ●		 ●
● ●
Volleyball ● ●
Water polo ●
Weightlifting ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Wrestling ● ● ● ●
● ● ● ●		 ● ● ● ●
● ● ● ●
Total gold medals 2 5 6 9 13 10 17 20 14 5 12 8 16 34 1
Ceremonies ● ●
Date 12th
Sat		 13th
Sun		 14th
Mon		 15th
Tue		 16th
Wed		 17th
Thu		 18th
Fri		 19th
Sat		 20th
Sun		 21st
Mon		 22nd
Tue		 23rd
Wed		 24th
Thu		 25th
Fri		 26th
Sat		 27th
Sun
October

Participating National Olympic Committees [edit]

Participants
Number of athletes per country

East Germany and West Germany competed as separate entities for the first time in at a Summer Olympiad, and would remain so through 1988. Barbados competed for the first time as an independent country. Also competing for the first time in a Summer Olympiad were British Honduras (now Belize), Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo (as Congo-Kinshasa), El Salvador, Guinea, Honduras, Kuwait, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Sierra Leone, and the United States Virgin Islands. Singapore returned to the Games as an independent country after competing as part of the Malaysian team in 1964.

Participating National Olympic Committees

Boycotting countries [edit]

North Korea withdrew its athletes from Cuba immediately prior to the beginning of the Olympics when the IOC refused to refer to the country by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea or DPRK.[citation needed]

Medal count [edit]

Main article: 1968 Summer Olympics medal table

These are the top ten nations that won medals at the 1968 Games. Host Mexico won 3 of each color of medal.

Rank Nation Gold Silver Bronze Total
1 United States 45 28 34 107
2 Soviet Union 29 32 30 91
3 Japan 11 7 7 25
4 Hungary 10 10 12 32
5 East Germany 9 9 7 25
6 France 7 3 5 15
7 Czechoslovakia 7 2 4 13
8 West Germany 5 11 10 26
9 Australia 5 7 5 17
10 Great Britain 5 5 3 13
15 Mexico (host nation) 3 3 3 9

See also [edit]

Portal icon Olympics portal

References [edit]

Notes
  1. ^ "ARA Helped keep olympic athletes fed". Reading Eagle. October 27, 1968. Retrieved 4 November 2012. 
  2. ^ IOC Vote History
  3. ^ "Past Olympic host city election results". GamesBids. Archived from the original on 17 March 2011. Retrieved 17 March 2011. 
  4. ^ Dannatt, Adrian (2012-02-17). "James Metcalf: US sculptor who led a community of artists and artisans in Mexico". The Independent. Retrieved 2012-02-25. 
Sources

External links [edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: 1968 Summer Olympics
Preceded by
Tokyo		 Summer Olympic Games
Mexico City
XIX Olympiad (1968)		 Succeeded by
Munich
Summer Games
Olympic rings without rims.svg
Winter Games
1 Discounted ex post facto by the IOC. 2 Cancelled due to World War I. 3 Cancelled due to World War II.
Events at the 1968 Summer Olympics (Mexico City)
Venues of the 1968 Summer Olympics

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