Olympic history: Montreal 1976 | London Spy - Yahoo Sport
Olympic history: Montreal 1976
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If one of the reasons for taking the 1976 Games to Montreal rather than to Moscow or Los Angeles was to avoid possible boycotts it didn't quite work.
A number of African nations stayed away, and a few more pulled out during the proceedings, in protest at the presence of New Zealand, whose rugby union team had undertaken a tour of South African earlier in the year.
But while numbers of nations and competitors were down on Munich, costs were up, partly because of the need for increased security but also because the Canadians were considered, not least by their own taxpayers, to have spent rather extravagantly.
Some estimated the final bill at $1,400-million but Canada didn't take so much as a gold medal in return, becoming the only hosts to fail to win an event at their own Summer Olympics.
The Soviets finished top of the medals table and much of their success came in gymnastics. Nikolai Andrianov won seven medals, including four golds from the seven individual events.
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The reptilian-looking Olympic Stadium
With the stars of previous Games, Ludmila Tourischeva and Olga Korbut, joined by the newcomer Nellie Kim the Soviets had a formidable women's team and took eight of the 18 medals on offer. But they were upstaged by Nadia Comăneci. Aged just 14, the Romanian won a medal in five of her six events, finishing with three golds, a silver and a bronze and only narrowly missing out on third place in the horse vault competition.
In the uneven bars event Comăneci became the first gymnast in Olympic history to be awarded a perfect 10, and she repeated the feat six times. The scoreboard couldn't cope; it could only display three digits and her score was displayed as 1.00.
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Nadia Comaneci's perfect 10 appears as 1.00
Swimming was dominated by the United States and East Germany. Only David Wilkie of Great Britain stood between the Americans and a clean sweep of the men's medals as he took gold in the 200m breaststroke. Kornelia Ender won four golds in the women's events as East Germany took 11 out of 13. In diving, Klaus Dibiasi of Italy won a third successive gold in the men's platform and, added to his silver from Tokyo in 1964, became the first diver to win medals at four editions of the Games.
East Germany won nine out of 14 women's gold medals in track and field but there were notable successes for the Soviet Union's Tatyana Kazankina in the 800m and 1,500m double and for Poland's Irena Szewińska, whose 400m victory, complete with world record, was her third and final gold in a total of seven meals dating back to 1964.
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West Germany in the velodrome
Top three performances
1-Nadia Comaneci (ROM) - Fourteen-year-old Comaneci scored seven perfect 10s en route to three gold medals. The scoreboard was not able to display the total, and instead showed 1.00.
2-Alberto Juantorena (CUB) - Became the first man to win a 400m-800m double at the same Olympics.
3-Bruce Jenner (USA) - Scored a world record 8,634 points en route to decathlon gold.
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Bruce Jenner crosses the line to clinch gold in the decathlon
Did you know?
Canada were the only host nation to date to win no gold medals, claiming five silver and six bronze.
Soviet modern pentathlon competitor Sergio Onishchenko was disqualified during the fencing competition when his epee was found to have been electronically rigged to register a 'hit' at the touch of a button.
28 African countries boycotted the Games in protest against the IOC's refusal to exclude New Zealand, whose rugby team had toured apartheid South Africa earlier in 1976.
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