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Robbed of gold? The 1972 Munich Olympics basketball gold medal game

Roar Guru
20th July, 2016
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The 1972 Munich Olympics will be remembered for a number of events that occurred during the major sporting event, from Mark Spitz winning a record seven gold medals at the same Olympics (a record which stood until 2008 when Michael Phelps won eight), to the tragedy that was the Munich massacre in which 11 Israeli Olympians were taken hostage and eventually killed.

Even Australia made a mark with Shane Gould winning three gold medals, a silver and a bronze all at the age of 15.

» VIEW THE OLYMPIC MEDAL COUNT HERE

However one event during the field of play has gone down as one of the most controversial events in Olympics history, the 1972 Men’s basketball final in which the USA was competing against the Soviet Union.

The run to the gold medal game was for both teams fairly straight forward, neither losing a single game on the run to the final (up until that point the USA team had never lost a game in Olympic competition since the sport was introduced in 1936.)

The Soviet Union was pushed much harder in their semi-final, only beating Cuba by 6 points whereas the USA team had thumped Italy by 30 points.

The final game was a tight contest with the Soviets taking the lead in the first half, the second half was a see-sawing event which saw the Soviets with a 49-48 lead in the final seconds of the game.

When Team USA player Doug Collins stole a pass at the half court line and was fouled going to the basket he had two free throws to take the lead with just three seconds left. After scoring the first basket Collins was in the motion of taking his second free throw when the horn from the scorer’s table sounded – never breaking his shooting motion, Collins scored the second basket and gave the USA the 1-point lead. Despite the referee looking at the scorers table at the time, play was never stopped.

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After the made basket Soviet assistant coach Sergei Bashkin ran to the scorers table informing them that the Russian head coach Vladimir Kondrashin had called for a timeout before the 2nd free throw but it had not been awarded to them, due to rules at the time the timeout could not be called after the 2nd free throw so no timeout would have been awarded.

The Soviets immediately in-bounded the ball and started running up court, however due to the disturbance at the scorer’s table the referee decided to stop play with a second left in the game.

During the stoppage the Soviets continued to push their case for the timeout to be awarded, in those times there was two ways to call a time out – by either alerting the scorer’s table or by pressing a button near the coaches which would illuminate a light at the scorer’s table to inform them of the desire for a time out.

The Soviets argued that the button was pushed when Collins was first fouled, which in that time the coach calling for the timeout would be given the choice of whether they wanted the timeout before the first free throw or before the second free throw, the Soviet team said they wished for it to be before the second free throw.

The game referees had not been informed of the timeout before giving Collins the ball for the second free throw so the timeout was never awarded.

After a lengthy delay the referees decide against giving the Soviet team a timeout and play was to be restarted from the second free throw giving the Soviet team a second chance at the inbound play, with a complete three seconds left on the clock.

The Soviet team went to inbound the ball however during the break in play they had managed to substitute one of their players out for someone else, a tactic they were using so as they could get their most accurate passer to get the ball to their centre under the ring to score.

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However the substitute should not have been permitted without a timeout being given, the referees had failed to notice the change of players, during this time the timekeeper was having problems resetting the game clock and when the inbound occurred the clock stated 50 seconds left in the game.

The inbound pass was defended heavily by team USA and the Soviet team was unable to run the exact play they wanted, and instead had to quickly get the ball to the player in the backcourt however as soon as he got the ball the horn sounded for the end of the game.

With no one really sure as to what was going on at the time and team USA noticing that the inbound had failed to get a score they began to celebrate the win, however the scorers were trying to get the play stopped as they had not yet accurately set the game timer.

Again the officials asked for the court to be cleared and for the game to be reset with three seconds and the Soviet team to again inbound the ball.

The decision was met with anger from the USA players and coaches and the USA head coach had actually considered taking his team off the court in protest however the fear that the Soviets would appeal and team USA would be declared as forfeiting the game they went back into position for the final play.

During the third and what would ultimately be the final inbound of the game, Team USA player Tom McMillen would defend the Soviet inbound however McMillen had the referee gesture towards him thinking this was for him to back away from the inbound pass he moved back, this movement gave the Soviets a clear unobstructed pass to their centre who had again been placed under the ring for the easy basket.

As the ball came down 2 USA players contested the shot however the momentum from one pushed him out of bounds and the other fell to the floor giving the Soviet player an easy catch and layup. The layup would count and the Soviets would win the game 51-50.

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Team USA would later appeal the loss which was heard by the FIBA’s five-person appeals jury, the appeal stemmed from the fact that the USA team felt the final three seconds should of included the first two seconds of the first in-bounds play before the referee stopped the game and final one second was from the second in-bounds play.

The appeal also mentioned that the game should have been finished at the 40 minute mark but instead due to the 3rd in bounds the game had ultimately run 40 minutes and three seconds.

The protest was eventually voted down and the Soviets would win the game. The loss marked the first international loss for Team USA in 64 games.

The vote was not released afterwards but considering at the time the USA and the Soviets were embroiled in the cold war many people believed that the votes were more in line with cold war partners and less with FIBA rules.

After the games the USA team again appealed the result this time to the IOC during the second appeal they also had the support of the head referee of the game who stated the result was “completely irregular and outside the rules of basketball,” he also criticised the secretary general of the FIBA at the time who had insisted on the clock being wound back to three seconds.

Another criticism the referee had was a language breakdown as he only spoke Portuguese being from Brazil whereas everyone on the scorers’ table spoke only German. Another supporter of the USA appeal was the time keeper who stated in his time as timekeeper being asked to put time back on the clock was unprecedented, all of this though was to no avail as the appeal was again knocked back and the IOC ruled that it was an issue that fell under the FIBA jurisdiction and not theirs.

During the medal ceremony for the game, team USA never appeared to receive their silver medals in protest of the result and stated they would never accept anything less than gold for the game due to all of the controversy. In the years after USA basketball on behalf of the IOC contacted the members of the team to offer them the silver medals and a full ceremony however it was always knocked back.

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In 1992 two of the team members told Sports Illustrated magazine that they would accept the silver medals if another vote between the players was held, both men stated that they would accept them on behalf of their families so they could pass something down their family line.

The IOC however stated that for the medals to be awarded the vote would have to be unanimous and they would not give the medals to individuals, there was talk between the team members that if the time ever came and that more players would vote to accept the silver as opposed to rejecting it the rest would begrudgingly accept the medals.

In 2012, all members of the team met as part of an ESPN 30for30 documentary and they stated after a discussion with all team members they would not vote to accept the medals – one team member has even gone so far as to put it in his will that no family member will ever accept the silver medal in his honor.

When the IOC decided to award dual gold medals to the winners and 2nd place in the 2002 figure skating scandal the team USA basketball team again appealed to the IOC to award a gold medal to them as well citing that outside intervention like the figure skating had swayed the result to the Soviet team, the IOC though never responded to the appeal.

The loss was always hard on the USA team and considering how it happened it was inevitable, the team has been dubbed as sore losers as well as the worst sportsmen in sports history, in contrast the Soviet team were regarded as national heroes for overcoming the USA team at the height of the cold war, very little (if at all any) notice was taken in regards to the controversial nature of the win.

The Soviet team has always maintained that they won the game legitimately and some have been critical of how the USA handled the loss. Head coach Kondrashin has acknowledged that the way they won takes some shine off the win however he still regards it as his greatest triumph in basketball.

As of now the team has still not claimed the medals and with many of the players entering the twilight of their lives we will more than likely never see the day they accept the medals. The game has gone down in history as one of the biggest upsets in Olympics history as well as one of the biggest controversies in Olympic history.

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Whether you think team USA was robbed or not it doesn’t change the fact that something not quite right occurred during the final stages of the game and those moments definitely changed the outcome of the game, whether it was in the Soviets favour is hard to say but it certainly didn’t hinder them in anyway.

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