1980 Olympic Marathon Team

1980 USA Marathon Olympic Trials

1st Tony Sandoval 2:10:19

2nd Benji Durden 2:10:41

3rd Kyle Heffner 2:10:55

I really showed them Russians who was boss. Kept these poor bastards from their dreams. Heh, heh, lifted the grain embargo six months later anyway...them damn Republicans would've shot somebody instead.

Nobody got screwed in '80 worse than me.

CraigVirgin wrote:

Nobody got screwed in '80 worse than me.

Not true!

Who missed out in the 5K and 1500?

I thought it was the year of Boston Billy Rodgers.

These are the folks who got screwed in 1980 USA Olympic Games boycott:

1,500 m - Men

1. Steve Scott

2. Steve Lacy

3. Mike Durkin

4. Todd Harbor

1,500m - Women

1. Mary Decker

2. Julie Brown

3. Leann Warren

4. Francie Larrieu

5,000m - Men

1. Matt Centrowitz

2. Dick Buerkle

3. Bill McChesney

4. Jerald Jones

In 1980, we probably would have had a better mid-distance and distance team than we had in 1976 and better than any team after 1980.

-Don Paige, 800m (he beat Seb Coe at 800m a few weeks after the olympics. He might not have beaten Coe or Ovett in the olympics, since those guys were exceptional at peaking, but he could have handled the rest of the field)

-Steve Scott, 1500m (he was about 2 years away from his prime and probably couldn't have kicked the way Coe, Straub, and Ovett did, but he would have had a good shot at 4th)

-Henry Marsh, steeplechase (comming into his prime, might have been a medal threat)

-Bill McChesney, 5000m (I think he had run 13:15 in 1980, though I might thinking of one of his brothers, that kind of time was pretty competitive back them)

-Craig Virgin, 10000m (Ranked #2 in the world in 1979 and 1980 at 10k and was world champ in x-country in 80 and 81, Yifter was probably the only guy he couldn't beat)

-Bill Rogers, marathon (this was before the emergence of De Castela, Lopez, Jones, Salazar, so Rogers would likely have been battling with Toshihiko Seko and Waldemar Cierpenski for the gold)

I don't know as much about the women, but I think that Mary Slaney had an outside shot at a medal in the 1500m. But for the guys, we had three likely medalists (one of whom had a pretty good shot at gold) and two solid guys who were definate top-5 material. That's marginally better than '76 (800m bronze, marathon silver) and '84 (800m bronze, steeplechase bronze, 1500m 5th place) and much better than anything from '88 on.

Yeah well this was during the Red Scare man. Jimmiy Carters boycott was well supported across party lines.

Maybe instead blameing each other , we could remmber this stupied mistake.

AND NOT BE SUCH FEARFUL, HATEFUL "MY COUNTRY RIGHT OR WRONG "... WACKOS!!!!!

By the way as to the athletes this may sound mean BUT.

Very few of them had the balls to stand up and say anything bad about the boycott.

Very few of them had the balls to stand up and say anything bad about the boycott.[/quote]

Bill Rodgers did and received death threats because of it so needed special protection of armed police on motorcycles during the Boston Marathon in 1980 so he would not be assasinated.

yeah somebody mentioned that but the post got deleted..

Anyway yeah that is awsome, It would have been cool if more runners had followed suit.

But the sad fact is many of them said negitive things about people like rodgers who did stand up.

Thats bull shit Medein-82! Three of us were on the evening news several times with are balls on the table and a radio talk show! We also drove in Plains GA and tried to are arrested, to make a statement. But on Sunday morning all the cops/CIA were at church or at the donut shop. That was just us! I know plenty of others training for the trials busting their state rep's and being in the news. And your wrong, both sides of the isle was not for the boycott, just the majority----f-in Democrates. Years later I actually met one of Jimmy's advisors who helped pushed this thing thru at a party! He looked like, and was built like, and almost talked like PEE WEE Herman and I ripped his ass big time for being f-en stupid, mixing politics and athetics. The gipper would have sent the team and said "KICK THERE ASS" !!!!

I assume that this is sarcasm. If it isn't, please see the thread titled, "Why does grammar matter." And I am sorry that Jimmy ruined your chances of going to the Olympics; it is a damn shame that the Red Scare resulted in such a boycott.

But before you start blaming the Democrates [sic], realize that the boycott was accepted with bipartisan favor. That year probably would have been a great year for American distance running; our sensationalism and fear got in the way of it though. Let us never forget what fear can do to ruin our hopes and dreams.

I was in my twenties during the 80 boycott. I lost all respect for Jimmy Carter when he did that. I thought he was wrong then and still feel he was wrong. It did not affect me at all, I am just a regular runner, not and olympian.

JC worked vary hard to win the presidency, what would he have done if someone took it away for no good reason the day after the election?

It wasn't Carter's decision to make. He asked the USOC to boycott, and they agreed. They could have told him no, which would have been very uncomfortable politically, but they didn't.

actually, wrong. the government had enormous financial controls over the usoc as a result of sweetheart land deals and the 1978 amateur athletics act. the usoc had little choice. if anyone wants, i can post my history thesis on the boycott as i finished it a few weeks ago.

Two words:

Bill Rodgers

Madein_82 wrote:

yeah somebody mentioned that but the post got deleted..

Anyway yeah that is awsome, It would have been cool if more runners had followed suit.

But the sad fact is many of them said negitive things about people like rodgers who did stand up.

I posted as "Saw it" earlier today, but guess I struck someone's craw because my post was deleted. Here's a synoposis. It goes against the grain of this site. Let's see if they delete this:

The Olympic Boycott was one of Jimmy Carter's biggest mistakes. Nevertheless I respect him. imo athletes could speak out more freely in the early 80s than today. Back then Rodgers and Decker were very vociferous about Carter's actions. In today's world an athlete who spoke out would 1) lose sponsorship, and 2) possibly be subject to governmental investigation and censure.