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I remember the Moscow Olympics very well. I'd finished A levels, was waiting to see if I'd got into university, and spent the two Olympic weeks in front of the television. I was really only interested in the gymnastics and track and field. I wanted Nadia Comaneci to win the women's gymnastics and Steve Ovett to beat Sebastian Coe. Like most people, I thought Coe would win the 800m and Ovett the 1500m, but would have liked Ovett to win both. In the event, Ovett won the 800m and Coe the 1500m. Comaneci came very close to winning the gymnastics all-around title (which she was defending from Montreal), but lost out to the Soviet Union's Elena Davidova, after Comaneci's beam mark was held up for about half an hour because of a judging dispute (the coverage was on ITV at the time and they even delayed the ads to wait for Comaneci's score ... those were the days).
Last night, watching these, and remembering that I was disappointed with Ovett's 1500m bronze and firmly convinced that Comaneci had been robbed of gold because the Olympics were in Moscow and she was Romanian, I felt annoyed with myself with just not appreciating the talent of the time. To have both Ovett and Coe representing Britain then was just incredible, and it was a pity that the papers took sides so much and encouraged the public to do so. And, as the camcorder coverage shows, all the East European women gymnasts were fantastic back then. Davidova's routines were highly original and she deserved her gold. But there were just so many other brilliant gymnasts around at that time, some of whom didn't even medal individually, so high was the standard. I don't enjoy watching women's gymnastics today, because there is no artistry and the routines seem less fluid. The camcorder coverage is really interesting, because you get to see lots of gymnasts (though part 4 seems to be missing) and I certainly never realised how noisy the crowd was!
Very entertaining! It took me right back in time to sitting in the "front room" with my dad, in front of the telly, while my mom sat in the "living room" on her own, whingeing about the fact the Olympics seemed to be on every channel!
Comments
Like you I thought they were all amazing.
Always wanted the British ones to do better and didn't understand why they didn't at the time...
Did I tell you my husband lived in Auckland for a few years?
For the record... yes, that must have been so annoying! But some people never think to look beyond their own noses. I didn't know the prices for postage had gone up that much, and it must be so frustrating, especially as you probably receive things from your own family on a regular basis :/ Would it be cheaper at all if someone bought a book for you and then posted it in a slow post or something?
The postage rates aren't actually a problem for me in regard to purchasing GO reprints, because I'm part of a bulk-buying scheme, which does make things a lot cheaper. Before discovering that, I used to get my mom to buy them for me, because she used to come out here once a year and would bring them out then. Where it has been a problem for me, though, was in terms of getting To All Appearance, Dead and First Term at Cotterford out here. I know a bookshop looked at ordering in some copies of TAAD for a crime panel I was doing, and in the end decided against it because once postage was added, plus exchange rates (good now, but bad at that particular time) the book became way too expensive for its size, especially as the people at the event would be murder mystery readers as opposed to GO collectors.