A chef from the GDR, windsurfers from Brazil and hockey players from Zimbabwe: the main sensations of the 1980 Moscow Olympics

The Summer Olympics were held in Moscow 40 years ago. Most of the medals were won by athletes who were expected to succeed in advance. However, these competitions were also full of surprises, and sometimes gold went to those participants whose name was not known at all before. RT talks about the main sensations of those Games.

Bengt Baron (swimming)

For 18-year-old Swedish swimmer Bengt Baron, the Moscow Olympics became the first international competition in his life. Before her, he was not even among the top 25 in the world at his main distance of 100 meters on his back. However, he made it to the semi-finals, finishing 11th in the qualifying round.

Baron also unexpectedly won his next swim, improving his personal best to 57.51 seconds. Only another little-known swimmer Viktor Kuznetsov was faster than him, whose result was 56.75 seconds. Since that time, it was the Soviet athlete who became the main contender for gold. However, in the final, Baron did the impossible - he “cut off” almost a whole second from his record and won gold, while Kuznetsov fell a little short of his semifinal result and was content with silver.

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© Tony Duffy / Staff

Karay Varga (shooting)

The regalia of the shooter Karoi Varg before the Moscow Olympics was limited only to a victory at the Hungarian Championship in 1976. At the last moment, the coaching staff decided to take him to the USSR, although no one seriously counted on the success of the 25-year-old athlete. Finally, the chances of showing a good result should have disappeared when Varga, the day before the opening of the Games, played football with the modern pentathlon team, and in the junction with the two-time Olympic champion Ferenc Török, he broke his arm.

However, Varga still took part in prone rifle shooting competitions. He had to make six series of ten shots to try to score the maximum 600 points. In the second round, he lost one point, but in the remaining attempts he did not know any mistakes. He persistently went to the medal, when suddenly on the 57th shot he again hit the "nine". After finishing the last series, he saw his name on the fifth line of the scoreboard and left the shooting range.

However, teammate Tibor Gostola caught up with Varga near the bus and told him the good news - he became an Olympic champion. The judges considered that Varga hit the top ten with the 57th shot, and in the end he scored 599 points. Only the German shooter Helfried Heilfort had the same number, but according to additional indicators he lost gold to Varga. It was the first shooting victory in 16 years for Hungary.

Gerd Wessig (athletics)

High jumper Gerd Wessig arrived in Moscow for the Olympic Games as a completely unknown athlete. His biography was limited only to the information that he was only 21 years old, he weighed 88 kg (which is quite a lot for his discipline) and was a cook who, unexpectedly for everyone, won the GDR championship in July 1980 with a score of 2.30 meters ...

Together with two compatriots, Wessig had to compete for a medal with the Pole Jacek Vshola, the reigning world champion and record holder. All four conquered the height of 2.29 meters, but Wessig did it on the second attempt, temporarily falling out of the top three. However, he alone took the 2.31 meter bar the first time and became the new leader. The height of 2.33 meters was not conquered by anyone except Wessig, and he sensationally became an Olympic champion.

However, his story did not end there. The winner remained in the sector and decided to take away not only gold from Vshola, but also the world record. He ordered a height of 2.36 meters and took it on the second try. Before Wessig, none of the high jumpers had ever won the Olympic Games with a world record.

Women's national team Zimbabwe (field hockey)

Every football fan knows the story of the Danish national team at Euro 1992, when a team called up to replace it unexpectedly won. But 12 years earlier, the Zimbabwe women's field hockey team had made an even more impressive path for gold.

The first ever women's tournament in this sport was to be held at the Moscow Olympics. Six national teams were selected to participate in it, but all of them, except for the Soviet team, refused to come because of the boycott. The organizers had to urgently look for those wishing to perform in Moscow, and 35 days before the start of the Games, Zimbabwe responded to the invitation. This country became internationally recognized in the spring of 1980, and its athletes had the chance to go to the Olympics.

The hockey team consisted of amateurs. The girls had to travel to Moscow on a cargo plane, and none of them had special shoes for playing on artificial grass. Nevertheless, the Zimbabwe team shocked everyone at the Olympics. In a round robin tournament, athletes from Africa won three victories and drew two times without suffering a single defeat. They overtook the national team of Czechoslovakia by one point margin and won gold. For the next 24 years, no one from Zimbabwe ever won an Olympic medal.

Victor Markin (athletics)

Victor Markin started athletics at an unacceptably late age for sports. He became interested in running only five years before the Moscow Olympics, when he entered the institute, and chose the 400-meter as his specialization, even three years before the competition itself. All this time, he remained a little-known athlete, who by the end of 1979 was among the top dozen in the country.

However, the next year Markin began to progress rapidly. In the spring of 1980, he improved his personal best by almost two seconds and unexpectedly found himself on the Olympic team. They did not expect him in the final of the competition, but he still managed to overcome all the qualifying rounds. In the decisive race, Markin was invisible until reaching the finish line, when he literally ran out from behind the backs of his rivals and won. He showed a time of 44.60 seconds - a new record in Europe. To this day, these figures are the highest achievement in Russia, and in 1980 they became the best result of the season, which even runners from the USA did not block at other starts.

It is interesting that the next day Markin was not included in the relay four. Substitutions could only be made in case of injury, so the Olympic champion in the individual race risked being left without a second medal. However, before the final, Viktor Burakov was injured, and Markin still took to the track. He took over the relay one meter behind the hurdler winner Volker Beck from Germany. As a result, the Soviet runner won the second gold medal.

Olympic champion in 400 meters and 4x100 meters relay Viktor Markin (first from right) after the victorious relay at the XXII Olympic Games in Moscow
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Tomi Poikolainen (archery)

Finn Tomi Poikolainen was traveling to Moscow as a little-known 18-year-old archer. In the first three days of competition in the individual championship, it was hardly possible to guess the future champion. His points earned were not enough even to get into the top three.

However, on the last day of the archery tournament, the situation changed dramatically. It started raining in Moscow, which did not prevent Poikolainen from shooting in the same way as before. But the rivals, primarily the leader Boris Isachenko from the USSR, began to lose points due to misses. At the last moment Poikolainen took the lead and won three points over Isachenko. In the future, the Finn took part in four more Games and won silver in the 1992 team tournament.

Marcos Soares and Eduardo Penido (sailing)

Sailing places special demands on the experience of the athletes - yachtsmen almost never win at a young age. However, in Tallinn, where the Olympic competitions were held, two Brazilians managed to dispel this stereotype. 19-year-old Marcos Soares and 20-year-old Eduardo Penido won the 470 class, which was an absolute surprise.

Before coming to the USSR, they did not think about winning and generally preferred windsurfing instead of racing on two-seater yachts. However, the water area of the Estonian capital turned out to be happy for them. Soares and Penido won two victories in the first four races and took second place once. They seized the lead and even after failing in the penultimate race they claimed victory.

In the final, the Brazilians needed to take at least fifth place in order to guarantee themselves the main prize. Soares and Penido finished sixth, but still became champions, as their main competitors from the GDR came second in the decisive race, two seconds behind the Finns. Previously, their compatriots also won gold in the Tornado class, and for Brazil it was the first gold medal since 1956. Soares became the youngest Olympic sailing champion in 20 years.