About
The Winter Olympics made its second visit to Lake Placid in 1980, and bumper crowds flocked to events despite bus strikes and freezing weather. The Games welcomed a team of athletes from the Peoples’ Republic of China for the first time, but it was the Soviet Union that once again dominated proceedings with ten gold medals.
In an unprecedented achievement, Eric Heiden of the United States won all five speed skating events, from 500m all the way up to 10,000m. It remains one of the most legendary performances in Winter Olympic history.
The Ice Hockey tournament produced a sensation. Dubbed the "Miracle on Ice" the American ice hockey team made up of college players beat the Soviet Union and then clinched the gold medal to put a temporary halt to the dominance of the "Red Machine."
Elsewhere, Liechtenstein, with a population of just 25,000, became the smallest nation to produce an Olympic champion when Hanni Wenzel triumphed in the women’s giant slalom. A further gold in the slalom and a silver in the downhill followed.
In the biathlon relay, the Soviet Union’s Aleksandr Tikhonov won his fourth straight gold medal, while his team-mate Nikolay Zimyatov won three gold medals in cross-country skiing.
Team GB
Team GB
Robin Cousins succeeded John Curry as men’s figure-skating champion. Cousin’s had cut his teeth in Innsbruck, where he had finished tenth, and in 1980 a routine of spellbinding manoeuvres and artistic jumps edged out his opponents to maintain British hold over the event. A three-times world free-skating champion, Cousins was later voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year for his efforts, and has since made a successful career transition to the stage as an actor, producer and choreographer in productions such as the Wizard of Oz on Ice.