Montreal, August 1, 1976. The closing ceremony of the Olympic Games. The
Olympic flame has gone out. "Good-bye,
Montreal! Till we meet in Moscow!", sports announcers kept saying.
Yes, it is Moscow that will be the site of the 22nd Summer Olympic Games.
The first modern Olympic Games, held in Athens in 1896, were the result
of efforts by Pierre de Coubertin, a French educator and public figure. After
their successful completion, the capital of Greece applied to the International
Olympic-Committee (IOC) with a request that Athens be granted the status of
Eternal Olympic City. However, Pierre de Coubertin was convinced that the
Olympic Games should be truly international in nature, and therefore they
should be held in different countries.
Since that time only sixteen cities have been privileged to host the
Olympic Games, though the number of bidders for the honor has been much
greater. The Soviet people have also been anxious to host the Games. Soviet
athletes enjoy high standing and considerable respect in the sporting world.
The largest stadiums of Moscow and other Soviet cities have been the site of
many world and European championships, including the World University Games of 1973.
The Soviet people were quite sure that they, too, could succesfully host the
Olympic Games and organize them as a real festival of health and beauty, of the
triumphant ideas of peace and friendship among nations.
In November 1971, V. Promyslov, Chairman of the Moscow Executive
Council, sent a message to IOC President in which he wrote: "Taking into account the sincere wish of the
residents of Moscow that the capital of
our state become the site of the Olympic Games, and being encouraged by
a desire to make a worthy contribution to the development of the modern Olympic
movement, the Moscow City Council of Working Deputies has the honor to
officially invite the 22nd Summer Olympic Games of 1980 to the city of Moscow..."
A year before the site of the next Olympic Games was to be chosen, Lord Killanin,
the IOC President, received a message from the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet to the effect that the Soviet
government would assist the city of Moscow
and the USSR Olympic Committee in every way, if the Soviet capital were chosen
at the site of the 1980 Olympic Games.
Alexei Kosygin, Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, had a meeting
with Lord Killanin during the World University Games held in Moscow in 1973. In
the course of their meeting Alexei Kosygin noted that Moscow was not looking
for any economic gain from holding the Olympics. Its organizers in Moscow would
do everything in their power to make the Games the biggest sports event the
world has seen and a real festival of sport. Furthermore, all the guests coming
to the Soviet Union for the Olympics, would have an opportunity to see
something of the life of the Soviet people and of the country's accomplishments
in various branches of the cultural field.
The Soviet Union invited members of the IOC to come to Moscow to see how
physical culture and sport are organised, to take a look at the city's sports
facilities and to see for themselves the possibility of staging the Olympics
here in 1980. This invitation was accepted and many IOC members visited the
Soviet capital Their impressions were favourable in Moscow: "The concern
shown by the state for sport", said Masai Kiyokava (Japan), an IOC member,
"the great enthusiasm of young people for sport, the wide-scale
construction of sports facilities and the high level of physical culture in the
USSR, all strongly support the claims of Moscow in the international
competition for the honour of staging the next Olympics. The city deserves to
be chosen."
IOC members were interested not only in the sports facilities but in the
city's cultural life as well. Traditionally, the country which organises the
games should also prepare an extensive program of cultural activities for the
time of the Olympics.
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