My eight year old son is aware of the Olympics for the first time this year, he was too young to really care about Athens in 2004, and I don’t think we watched much of the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics, maybe some of the figure skating.
Anyway he has been very interested this year, asking lots of questions about the different countries, events, and athletes. I realized this will probably be the first Olympics he remembers.
I remember the 1972 summer games in Munich when I was roughly the same age he is now. I distinctly remember Olga Korbut, and being fascinated that a girl who didn’t look to be much older than me was competing on TV for the whole world to see. I also remember everyone making a big deal about Mark Spitz, although I can’t say I remember actually watching him win any medals.
The other strong memory is of all the Cold War stuff, unsmiling East German judges delivering unfairly low scores for Western athletes and all that.
I have no memory of the terrorist incident at the games, I don’t know if my parents purposely shielded us from it or what.
While I was dimly aware the Winter Olympics existed I don’t think we ever watched them. I remember hearing about the US hockey team at Lake Placid in 1980, we lived only a few hundred miles away. I doubt I watched any of the games. The first Winter Olympics I really watched was 1988 in Calgary, I remember Katarina Witt, Debi Thomas falling on her butt, and the two Brians on the men’s side. Also Pirmin Zubriggen winning the gold in the alpine downhill, and Alberto Tomba’s ego winning the gold in the slalom.
What are your earliest Olympic and/or Winter Olympic memories?
Some very vague memories of 1976 Montreal games. I remember the 1980 winter games better as well as the boycott of the Moscow games.
I know almost everything about the 1984 Los Angeles games. That was the summer before I started driving and I didn’t do much that summer except watch the Olympics.
The 1972 Munich games. We lived in Germany at the time but had no television so I wasn’t aware of the actual games as such.
In the next winter holidays we went to Munich and went to the Olympic stadium and other venues. My Dad did a lot of explaining about the Games, then inexplicably took us into a corridor (I now realised it was the bridge in the stadium where the memorial is) and solemnly told us that 11 people had been murdered. I was UTTERLY confused and had a lingering sense of danger and confusion about the Olympics until a good many years later.
I was just telling my husband about this! In 1976 I was 12 years old and my entire family (immediate + extended) was on vacation at a beach house in South Carolina. We’d swim all day and then all sit down and watch the Olympics on television at night. It was thrilling to see Nadia Comăneci of Romania win perfect 10s! Like Lagomorph’s memory, I couldn’t get over this little girl, about my age, doing these amazing things with the whole world watching!
I also vividly recall the winter games with Dorothy Hamill. Of course I got my hair cut just like her.
My earliest memories go back to the 1992 Olympics, Ellen van Langen winning gold on the 800m in Barcelona and Leo Visser tossing his skates towards the audience after racing his last race at Albertville.
My only memory of the 1972 Olympics is seeing a stylized athlete and Olympic rings on the side of a cereal box. I was four.
We must have watched some of the 1976 games, but I don’t remember anything about them.
My first clear Olympics memory is the downhill skiing at Lake Placid. (Never saw the Miracle on Ice.)
Watched just about all the Sarajevo (seemed to snow continuously there, while we were having an exceptionally warm and snowless February) and LA games (nothing else to do on summer vacation). Had a crush on Mary Lou Retton – and all her teammates.
I remember Nadia in 1976 (I was 8), but didn’t really pay attention until 1980. From that year I remember the Miracle on Ice, Tai & Randy, Linda Fratiane, Eric Heiden, and the Moscow boycott.
The 1960 Winter Olympics. I vaguely remember the ski jumping, and quite clearly remember the commercials for the Renault Dauphine (it had two pitches for the horn!)
I guess my first clear memory of the summer games was of Don Schollander, in 1964.
I have vague memories of the 1984 winter and summer olympics (figure skating and Mary Lou Retton, respectively) but I remember the cereal boxes better (I was five).
I have strong memories of the '88 winter and summer games, especially the competition between Katerina Vitt and Debi Thomas (figure skating) and the Greg Lougainis thing. I also remember Matt Biondi and Janet Evans swimming.
Yep. In 72, I was 10. (Sounds like a Jackson Browne song.) Mark Spitz is probably my earliest memory. Strangely enough I don’t remember the terrorist stuff either. There was a whole lot of violence on the news around that time though, so it probably just blended in with the other stuff happening in Viet Nam, Northern Ireland, etc.
Though I have a vague recollection of a fleeting glimpse at the 1972 Olympics, my first real memories are of 1976.
We were watching TV one night and my mom was telling me how the various sports worked and how they were scored. I asked the inevitable question any small child might ask “Does anyone ever get all tens?”
My mom quickly explained to me how that never happens since no one ever is perfect and … a few minutes later Nadia got all tens. We were both stunned.
