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1960 Summer Olympics

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Opening Ceremony in 1960 Summer Olympics in Stadio Olimpico in Rome, Italy

The 1960 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XVII Olympiad (Italian: Giochi della XVII Olimpiade), was an international multi-sport event held from August 25 to September 11, 1960, in Rome, Italy. Rome had been awarded the organization of the 1908 Summer Olympics, but after the 1906 eruption of Mount Vesuvius, was forced to decline and pass the honors to London.

Host city selection

On June 15, 1955, at the 50th IOC Session in Paris, France, Rome beat out Lausanne, Detroit, Budapest (being the first city of the Eastern Bloc to bid for the Olympic Games), Brussels, Mexico City and Tokyo for the rights to host the Games. Tokyo and Mexico City would eventually host the following 1964 and 1968 Summer Olympics.[1]

Toronto was initially interested in the bidding, but appears to have been dropped during the final bid process.[2] This is the first of five attempts by Toronto up to 2001, which all ended in failure.

1960 Summer Olympics bidding results[3]
City Country Round 1 Round 2 Round 3
Rome  Italy 15 26 35
Lausanne   Switzerland 14 21 24
Detroit  United States 6 11 —
Budapest  Hungary 8 1 —
Brussels  Belgium 6 — —
Mexico City  Mexico 6 — —
Tokyo  Japan 4 — —

Highlights

Abebe Bikila of Ethiopia wins the marathon barefooted
  • Abebe Bikila of Ethiopia won the marathon barefooted to become the first black African Olympic champion.
  • Cassius Clay, US, later known as Muhammad Ali, won boxing's light-heavyweight gold medal. Ramon "Buddy" Carr was one of the coaches that led this team to winning gold.[5]
  • Herb Elliott, AUS, won the men's 1500 meters in one of the most dominating performances in Olympic history.
  • Rafer Johnson, US, defeated his rival and friend C.K. Yang in one of the greatest Decathlon events in Olympic history.
  • Lance Larson, US, was controversially denied a 100 metres freestyle swimming gold, despite showing the best time.
  • The future Constantine II, last King of Greece (abdicated and ended hybrid monarchy, 1973) won his country a gold in sailing: dragon class.
  • The Pakistani Men's Field Hockey team broke a run of Indian team's victories since 1928, defeating India in the final and winning Pakistan's first Olympic gold medal.
  • Singapore competed for the first time under its own flag, which was to become its national flag after independence, as the British had granted it self-government a year earlier. Coincidentally, it was the first time (and only time until 2008) an athlete from Singapore won an Olympic medal when Tan Howe Liang won silver in the Weightlifting lightweight category.
  • Wrestlers Shelby Wilson, and Doug Blubaugh, US, who wrestled together growing up, won gold medals in their respective weight classes.

Anticlimaxes

Non-medal winners

Broadcasting

  • CBS paid $394,000 ($4060000 in today's dollars) for the exclusive right to broadcast the Games in the United States. This was the first Summer Olympic games to be telecast in North America. In addition to CBS in the United States, the Olympics were telecast for the first time in Canada (on CBC Television) and in Mexico (through the networks of Telesistema Mexicano). Since television broadcast satellites were still two years into the future, CBS, CBC, and TSM shot and edited videotapes in Rome, fed the tapes to Paris where they were re-recorded onto other tapes which were then loaded onto jet planes to North America. Planes carrying the tapes landed at Idlewild Airport in New York City, where mobile units fed the tapes to CBS, to Toronto for the CBC, and to Mexico City for TSM. Despite this arrangement, many daytime events were broadcast in North America, especially on CBS and CBC, the same day they took place.[7]

Venues

Main article: Venues of the 1960 Summer Olympics

¹ New facilities constructed in preparation for the Olympic Games. ² Existing facilities modified or refurbished in preparation for the Olympic Games.

Games

Participating National Olympic Committees

Participants
Number of athletes per country

A total of 83 nations participated at the Rome Games. Athletes from Morocco, San Marino, Sudan, and Tunisia competed at the Olympic Games for the first time. Athletes from Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago would represent the new (British) West Indies Federation, competing as "Antilles", but this nation would only exist for this single Olympiad. Athletes from Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia competed under the Rhodesia name while representing the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Athletes from East Germany and West Germany would compete as the United Team of Germany from 1956 to 1964. The number in parentheses indicates the number of participants that each country contributed.

Participating National Olympic Committees
  •  Suriname also made its first Olympic appearance, but its lone athlete (Wim Esajas) withdrew from competition due to a scheduling error.[8]

Sports

The 1960 Summer Olympic programme featured 150 events in the following 17 sports:

Calendar

All dates are in Central European Time (UTC+1)
See also: Chronological summary of the 1960 Summer Olympics

Template:1960 Summer Olympics calendar

Medal count

Main article: 1960 Summer Olympics medal table

These are the top ten nations that won medals at the 1960 Games:[9]

1  Soviet Union 43 29 31 103
2  United States 34 21 16 71
3  Italy (host nation) 13 10 13 36
4  United Team of Germany 12 19 11 42
5  Australia 8 8 6 22
6  Turkey 7 2 0 9
7  Hungary 6 8 7 21
8  Japan 4 7 7 18
9  Poland 4 6 11 21
10  Czechoslovakia 3 2 3 8

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "IOC VOTE HISTORY".
  2. ^ "Toronto has made 5 attempts to host the Olympics. Could the sixth be the winner?". thestar.com. 24 July 2015.
  3. ^ "Past Olympic host city election results". GamesBids. Archived from the original on 17 March 2011. Retrieved 17 March 2011. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  4. ^ "Stories About USMS Swimmers". Usms.org. Retrieved 2011-03-23.
  5. ^ http://www.toledoblade.com/Deaths/2016/03/11/Ramon-Buddy-Carr-TPD-officer-coached-gold-medalist-boxer.html
  6. ^ Maraniss, David (2008). Rome 1960: The Olympics That Changed the World (1st ed.). New York City, NY: Simon & Schuster. p. 138. ISBN 978-1-4165-3407-5.
  7. ^ "OLYMPICS AND TELEVISION - The Museum of Broadcast Communications". Museum.tv. Retrieved 2011-03-23.
  8. ^ Official Olympic Reports. Archived from the original on 2006-06-22. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  9. ^ Byron, Lee; Cox, Amanda; Ericson, Matthew (August 4, 2008). "A Map of Olympic Medals". The New York Times. Retrieved February 26, 2012.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to 1960 Summer Olympics.
Preceded by Summer Olympic Games
Rome
XVII Olympiad (1960) 		Succeeded by
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