1972 Munich Olympics Scandal

The games weren’t suspended until 12 hours after the first murder, and then were only suspended for 34 hours ("Munich 1972"). During this time, a mass was held in the main stadium to honor the victims, but under the insistence of the former International Olympic Committee President, Avery Brundage, “the Games must go on” (“Munich 1972).
Prior to the Games, Dr. Georg Sieber, a German forensic psychologist, was asked by Olympic security experts to develop 26 emergency scenarios to help plan event security. Ironically, Sieber had identified situation Number 21 as “a dozen armed Palestinians would scale the perimeter fence of the [Olympic] Village. They would invade the building that housed the Israeli delegation, kill a hostage or two ("To enforce
With only a couple seconds left on the clock, the U.S. was up 50-49, but the Soviets claimed they attempted to take a timeout (Romanov, "1972 Munich Olympics"). This game became so highly debated when the Soviets were unsuccessful at scoring after the officials allotted them three seconds and a chance to inbound the ball. The U.S. erupted into triumph after pulling off an unlikely victory, until the head of the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) announced that the Soviets would be given another chance to inbound the ball. On this attempt, the Soviets scored and the game was called 51-50 in favor of the
Also, the large-scale of international sporting events creates an environment vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Therefore, the nations involved in the Olympics should act as a unified front against modern terrorism. The 1972 Munich Massacre illustrates the inseparability between sports and politics, and how this relationship led to the kidnapping and murders of innocent people. These Olympics exposed the need to restore the games back to a peaceful international community facilitated by sports. The international sporting community suffered when realist values of egoist nations outweighed the idealist perspective intended for the