Friendship Games

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Logo of Druzhba-84
Logo of Druzhba-84

The Friendship Games or Druzhba Games or Druzhba-84 Competition was an international multisport event that was held in 1984 in nine different countries under the motto: "Sport, Friendship, Peace".

An alternative to the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, it was organized by the Soviet Union and other Eastern bloc countries (constitutionally socialist states) which had boycotted that event. Some 2,300 athletes from almost 50 countries took part in the competition.[1] The opening ceremony was held at the Grand Arena of the Central Lenin Stadium, as at the 1980 Summer Olympics, during which the flame in the cauldron was lit.

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[edit] Venues

The Games were held in nine countries:

[edit] Competition

The competition was held in July-September. There were 24 Olympic sports in the programme, as well as tennis, table tennis, sambo wrestling, women's shooting. Friendship Games saw athlete performances that often exceeded the standards set during the Los Angeles Games. In twenty-eight of forty-one track events, the performance of the winning Eastern-bloc athlete was superior to that of his or her Olympic counterpart. For example, Marlies Gohr of East Germany won the 100 meter dash in 10.95 seconds, slightly faster than American Evelyn Ashford's winning time of 10.97 at the Olympics. Ashford did beat Gohr in their next face-to-face competition and set a new world record. 48 World Records were set at Druzhba-84, as compared to 11 ones set in Los Angeles. 22 of them were set by athletes from the USSR. One of the new world records in Druzhba-84, was set by the East German discus thrower Irina Meszynski with 73.36 [1]

The artistic gymnastics competition was held in Czechoslovakia and is usually called 'ČSSR Spartakiade' or simply 'Olomouc' after the host city. In the women's all-around Olga Mostepanova became the first and only gymnast in history to earn 10.0 scores on all four events in a major international competition, finishing the session with a perfect mark of 40.0. Men's events saw the introduction of the long-swing with full pirouette on parallel bars, or Long-swing Diamidov.

The Soviet Union proposed that CNN televise the Friendship Games, an offer rejected by Ted Turner. Turner said that the network would simply give spot coverage to the Friendship Games, "as we would any other sporting event."

[edit] References

  1. ^ Infosport ("1984" section). Retrieved on March 28, 2006.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links