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Eight Palestinian terrorists shot two Israeli athletes dead and held nine more as hostages during the 1972 Munich Games in Germany. Those nine were also murdered during a botched rescue attempt. The 1980 Moscow Games in Russia saw the fewest number of athletes in a Summer Olympics since 1956, when the USA led a boycott of Moscow after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December of 1979. The Soviet Union then led a contingency of Eastern European nations that boycotted the 1984 Los Angeles Games during the Cold War, mainly as payback for the U.S. boycott. The first Summer Olympics that were boycott-free since 1972 were the 1992 Games in Barcelona, Spain, which was also the first time professional basketball players competed, opening the door for professionals in all Olympic sports except wrestling and boxing. Before the International Olympic Committee (IOC) approved professional athletes to participate in the late 1980s, the Olympics were primarily for the world’s best amateur athletes. Many have lamented the demise of amateurism at the Olympic Games, but by far the most contentious issue the IOC has dealt with in recent years is the scourge of steroids and other prohibited performance-enhancing drugs. The world’s greatest celebration of sport has had a checkered and colorful past, from politics and doping to sheer athleticism and the triumph of the human spirit. This century has seen the Summer Games return to familiar places (Athens 2004, London 2012) and expand to new ones (Sydney 2000, Rio de Janeiro 2016). Tokyo awaits the world in 2020, when the newest great Olympic stories will be told.

– Scott McDonald, Olympic and Paralympic Journalist

The Summer Olympics: Record Breakers

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