The God Days of Summer Trivia Quiz

Answer: Soviet Union

With the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in 1990 and the accession of East Germany, West Germany would become the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1991 the Soviet Union dissolved and all of the republics that made up the Union became fully independent post-Soviet states. As a consequence neither of these two nations (East Germany and the USSR) would make an appearance at the next Olympics, in 1992 in Barcelona and, from what it appears, thereafter.

As if knowing they were not coming back again, the two nations dominated the medal table at Seoul. The Soviet Union would top the table with a total of 132 medals, of which 55 were gold. East Germany finished second on that table with 102 medals, 37 of which were gold.

Answer: True

Albania entered the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. It was their first-ever entry into the Olympics and it would be their last for another twenty years. In 1973 the country's leader, Enver Hoxha, closed the doors to his country to the rest of the world and proclaimed his land the first atheist state.

When the 1976 invitations were sent out Hoxha declared that Albania would not be attending because the country's athletes were not up to world standard. He would trot out the same excuse in 1980 and 1984. Following the trend, his successor, Ramiz Alia, utilised the same line when declaring that Albania would not attend Seoul in 1988. Here's the rub... Albania's shooters and weightlifters were world class and were winning medals in events in Europe during this period. The ignominy is that Albania became the first ever nation to boycott four consecutive Olympics.

It was made easier for Albania, or should I say, that an intense spotlight was not shone on them, during this period because other nations were boycotting the Games in force for at least three of these Games. In 1976 over twenty African nations withdrew over the presence of New Zealand at the Montreal Games, a nation whose rugby team had played a recent tournament against a racially segregated South African team. In 1980, over sixty nations refused to attend the Moscow Games due to the Soviet's invasion of Afghanistan and the 1984 Games in Los Angeles were boycotted by the Eastern Bloc nations in what was seen as a tit-for-tat retaliation. The 1988 Games in Seoul almost saw the disappearance of the boycotts. North Korea refused to attend after they were denied the opportunity to act as co-hosts of the Games and Cuba went out in support. Albania, along with Ethiopia, and Seychelles, did not respond to the invitations sent by the International Olympic Committee.

Answer: To save a life

Lemieux had suffered the disappointment of finishing in 13th place at the 1984 Olympics and had poured all his energy at a shot at the podium at Seoul. Sailing in the fifth race (of eight), of the Finn class, to decide the championships, Lemieux was leading the race in very rough seas. A win would have solidified his spot in second place and it, seemingly, would have assured him of a silver medal.

He spotted Joseph Chan and Siew Shaw, the two-man Singaporean team in the 470 event, in distress. Their dinghy had overturned. One of the men had made it back to the boat but the other was drifting out to sea. The conditions were such that no one else was going to see him. In an interview with the "Financial Times" Lemieux advised that there was no question as to what he had to do. He rescued both men but had to wait for a patrol boat to arrive to collect the men and take them to shore. Only then was he able to re-join the race. He finished 21st and destroyed any chance he had of winning a medal.

Juan Antonio Samaranch, President of the International Olympic Committee, declared "By your sportsmanship, self-sacrifice and courage, you embody all that is right with the Olympic ideal". Lemieux was awarded the Pierre de Coubertin Medal for Sportsmanship for his act of courage.

Answer: Lennox Lewis

Bowe had been the dominant fighter in the first round of his fight with Lewis. He had landed more than a third of his punches (33 of 94) to 14 of 67 (21%) by Lewis, but he was delivered two cautions for head butting by the East German referee. The controversy started when Bowe was penalized a point for a supposed third offence, but television replays showed that there was no third contact. In the next round Lewis landed two powerful hits to Bowe and the American was given two standing counts. At the completion of the second count the referee stopped the fight stating that Bowe was not in fit state to continue. Commentators were divided on this, though the general opinion seemed that the decision to stop the fight was a confusing one.

Now how's this for a bit of irony... in 1992 Bowe would reclaim the World Heavyweight Championship but would surrender the title the following year, rather than have to fight the new challenger... who just happened to be Lennox Lewis.

Answer: Swimming pool

Nesty won the men's 100 metres butterfly event in a time of 53:00 seconds. It was one of the closest finishes at the Olympics with Nesty beating US swimmer Matt Biondi by .01 seconds. The win created history with Nesty not only winning Suriname's first Olympic medal, he was also the first black male athlete to win an individual medal of any description in the pool. After this event Nesty would remain undefeated in the event for the next three years.

The celebrations did not end there. The win was of such importance that the Suriname government commemorated his performance on a stamp, as well as, on gold and silver coins. A 25 guilder banknote was printed with a butterfly swimmer on the face, Surinam Airways named a plane after him and a stadium in Paramaribo now bears his name.

For Biondi the loss was a savage blow. To that point he was on track to equal Mark Spitz's feat of winning seven gold medals at a single Olympic Games. He would end up with five golds, a silver and was, later, relegated to a bronze in the 200 metre freestyle event.

Answer: False

I hope you scoffed at that because half of those disqualified were weightlifters. Two of them, Mitko Grablev and Angell Guenchev (both from Bulgaria), had won gold medals; and these were stripped from them. Another weightlifting medallist, Andor Szanyi from Hungary, had his silver medal taken off him.

The most high profile case at these Games was that of Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson, who'd tested positive for Stanozolol, after setting a new world record and winning the gold medal in the 100 metre sprint event. He too lost his medal and would later claim that his sample had been sabotaged.

The strangest case was that of Australian pentathlete Alex Watson who'd tested positive for caffeine. Watson claimed that he'd had a number of coffees that morning to calm his nerves. Despite an official declaring that he would have needed to have drunk something akin to 30 cups of coffee that morning to reach the level of dosage in his system, Watson was able to clear his name after the Games and was allowed to compete at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

Answer: A number were killed

Doves were first released at the Summer Olympics in Antwerp in 1920. They are released as a universal sign of peace, prosperity and support amongst nations. At Seoul, the doves were let loose just as the three runners entered the stadium, each with an Olympic torch to signal the start of the Games. As the runners were running up the steps to the cauldron, three of the doves had settled on its lip. The cauldron was such that the runner's heads were below the lip and they had to reach over the lip to ignite the flame... they didn't see the birds.

The birds were ignited in front of 8,000 athletes, a capacity crowd in the stadium and a live television audience. To give the official Games' cameraman his due, he turned his camera away and showed a general shot of the stadium, thus avoiding the showing of any distressing images... but it didn't take much imagination to guess what had happened.

Live doves were released again at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games. This was done hours before the lighting of cauldron but strong protests outside the stadium ensured that this would be the last time. In 1996 paper doves were used at the Atlanta Games and balloon doves were released at the Winter Games in 1994 and 1998.

Answer: The first athlete to win medals in two Olympics held in the same year

An extraordinary athlete, Christa started her international career as a speed skater. She would win the gold medal in the 500 metre event at the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo in 1984. However, the big wins for her came in the following Olympiad. In 1988, at the Winter Olympics in Calgary, she would take home a silver medal in that same event (500 metre sprint) but capped it off with a gold medal in the 1,000 metres. That was in February of 1988. Seven months later, in September, she represented East Germany as a cyclist in the Summer Olympics at Seoul. She would be nudged out of the gold medal spot by the USSR's Erika Salumae in the women's track sprint event, but still made history.

That may also be the last time that performance may be achieved as, since 1994, the Olympic Games have alternated between a summer and winter edition every two years within the four-year period of each Olympiad.

Answer: South Korea

The prelude: Jones arrived at the final with an unblemished record... by that, I mean, he never lost a single round in the entire tournament.
The fight: Jones pummeled the home country's champion for all three rounds, landing 86 punches to Park's 32.
The decision: A margin of 3-2 in favour of Park.

The aftermath: Jones would go on to have a stellar career, winning multiple titles. For Park it was a different story. Booed by the crowd, even his own countrymen, when he stepped up to collect his gold medal, he retired from boxing immediately after the Games and became a school teacher.

In an interview in 2020 with NBC sports he indicated "every boxer knows when he's done enough to win a fight". With that in mind, he added that he was stunned when the referee raised his hand and that he felt awkward when he embraced Jones. He went further to say that he wished that he'd won silver... his life would have been so much happier.

There were stories circulated that the East German Stasi secret police had found evidence of bribery between the South Korean boxing officials and some of the judges. However, an inquiry conducted by the International Olympic Committee in 1997 could find no evidence to corroborate that story and ruled that the decision in favour of Park would stand.

Answer: 6

Headlines abounded in Seoul in the summer of 1988. On the track Ben Johnson made the world gasp with his astonishing world record in the 100 metre dash, then groan two days later when he was found to have been assisted by steroids. In the pool the world held their breath as they watched Matt Biondi march on Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals in one Olympics. He did manage to achieve seven medals but how he must have groaned that only five of them were of a golden hue.

Trumping both men was the darling of the pool, Kristen Otto, who had entered six events and won a gold medal in all of them. Making the feat more remarkable was that four of those were in individual events and three of those were in different strokes. No woman before her had ever won more than four gold medals at an Olympic Games. It wasn't difficult to bandy the words "goddess of the pool" about.

Twelve months after the Games she retired but, even in retirement, the shadow that had followed her throughout her career was the spectre of the drug programme that had been systematically carried out by her nation. Otto would deny the claims of drug assistance; "I have never knowingly taken any banned substances," she said, and "I have no knowledge of ever having taken something to help my performance." The key word in all of that is "knowingly".

After the Berlin Wall had come down in 1989 so too had a pile of East German secrets, including details of State Plan 14:25, which detailed the nation's systematic doping plan for its athletes. Otto's name was on the list of athletes who'd been provided with anabolic steroids. Still, she denied the claim. However, the most damning comment would come from her fellow swimmer and three time Olympic gold medalist Rica Reinisch - "When she claims she cleaned up in Seoul without taking anything, then I can only say she didn't win six golds by drinking buttermilk". Remarkably, the golden girl of the Seoul Olympics will now be forever linked with Ben Johnson, the only difference is that Ben got caught, Kristen didn't.

This quiz showcased the good, the bad and the ugly of the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics, somehow Kristen Otto managed to encompass all three of those qualities.