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1972 Olympic Basketball: The Controversies Of The 1972 Olympics Basketball

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1972 Olympic Basketball The 1972 Olympics basketball finals in Munich remains one of the most controversial Olympic games in history. Controversies of this match took both a sporting and political angle at the time because the two finalists, team USA and team USSR, came from a background of political competitions by virtue of them being the two most powerful nations on earth. The controversy happened in three “final three seconds.” Whatever happened to the medals remain equally controversial. Final Six Minutes The US team came to the Munich Olympics as the favorite with a long standing unbeaten Olympics record. Team USSR was equally strong with a solid background of winning and actually posed a threat to the defending champions. The Soviet’s had led the scoring for the entire game until the last six minutes when the US coach called for a time out to motivate his team that, at the time, trailed the Soviets by 8 points. On coming back, the US managed to cut the Soviet’s lead to a single point. In the last half a minute, the Soviet’s error gifted Doug Collins a chance and just as he was about to shoot and make two points, Zurab Sakandelidze fouled him. By then, only three seconds of play remained. Three Seconds The referee awarded Collins two free …show more content…

The referee immediately started the game without a clue that the table was waving at him to wait until they had reset the clock. In the confusion of the moment, the Soviet team started the inbound play and the final buzzer went off. Surprisingly during this time, most US broadcasters captured the play, while the Soviet broadcasts were fixed on the clock that was still to be reset. Team USA and fans celebrated as none knew of the confusion. All the players had to be informed one by one because of the chaos and it took several minutes before they all learned of this development and for the court to be

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