The 1980 winter games played a huge role in the tension between the Soviet Union and Americans. Specifically the hockey tournament. The Soviets came into the games as the number one team that was supposed to win the gold. The soviets had won 6 gold medals of the last 7 olympic games. Needless to say the well decorated soviets should have walked all over the American team that was made up of college players. When the US beat the USSR 4-3 in a match it was a huge upset and boasted the morale of the Americans. The Americans went on to win gold and Soviets Silver, although the players of the Soviet team refused to have their names engraved on the medals because they were too humiliated of second place. This did not help how the world viewed the USSR.
The olympics provided another platform for the two superpowers to fight their battles. Although some nations argue that the US boycott of the 1980 games was strategically pointless it did further the mistrust between the two powers and set the foundation for the 1984 games that were held in Los Angeles. The Soviets boycotted this games in part because of the US boycott four years earlier and they did not think that the soviet athletes would get proper security while in the states.
Sports have always been and will continue to be a way for countries to display dominance and earn a sense of pride but during the Cold War each win seemed more important, and tensions ran deeper.![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sZ2-Wnva8kFAY-FrOGLPvEWU-s9yoKNUpDQA5M4BjZnE1nGHMSEuw-w245kMd2t-j4Y-70aEXvniIrHjvQkG-1_MMwLNoufKYWrU5cebhBlLJvPw=s0-d)
Sources:
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/the-global-history-sport-the-cold-war
http://www.euronews.com/2015/06/09/sports-in-the-cold-war-climate-how-moscow-and-the-west-muscled-it-out/
http://www.historytoday.com/christopher-r-hill/cold-war-and-olympic-movement
Sports during the cold war was a good indicator of how this proxy war played. The Cold War consisted of small gestures made by both parties, each step calculated, meant to evoke a response. The Olympics was boycotted during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and by boycotting, America showed that it didn’t approve of Soviet Action. This pattern can be seen in other events like Korea and Vietnam.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/the-cold-war-sporting-front/53/
I think this is a good example of how the Cold War tensions permeated all aspects of life. For example, the Space Race was perhaps the most intense competitive incarnation of the Cold War in non-political areas. The advancement of technology was also a large area of contention and competition between the two nations.
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