U.S. Men's Basketball Controversy at 1972 Olympics
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The United States rode their seven consecutive gold medals and 63-0 Olympic record to Munich for the 1972 Summer Olympics. The team won its first eight games in convincing fashion, setting up a final against the Soviet Union.
Without question, the 1972 Olympic men's basketball gold medal game is the most controversial in Olympic history, and it marked the first ever loss for Team USA in Olympic play. With three seconds left, American forward Doug Collins sank two free throws to put the Americans up 50-49. However, the horn sounded before Collins' second free throw.
Immediately following Collins' free throws, the Soviets inbounded the ball and failed to score. But one official had whistled play to stop with one second remaining after hearing the earlier horn and seeing a disturbance near the scorers table. The Soviets argued that they had requested a timeout before Collins' foul shots. The referees ordered the clock reset to three seconds and the game's final seconds replayed. However, the clock was in the process of being reset when the referees put the ball in play. A length of the court Soviet pass missed its mark, the horn sounded and the U.S. again began celebrating.
However, R. William Jones, Secretary General of FIBA, stepped in and ordered the clock again reset to 0:03 and the game replayed from that point. This time, the Soviet's Aleksander Belov and the USA's Kevin Joyce and Jim Forbes went up for the pass, and Belov caught the long pass from Ivan Edeshko at the foul line, sending the two Americans sprawling. Belov then drove to the basket for the layup and the winning points as the buzzer sounded. The U.S. team quickly filed a protest after the game, which was heard by a five-man Jury of Appeal. In a 3-2 decision (divided along ideological lines between Communist and non-Communist countries), the Jury voted down the protest and awarded the gold medals to the Soviet team. The U.S. players voted unanimously to refuse their silver medals; several team members have directed in their wills that their heirs are never to accept the medals, even posthumously.
[edit] Sources
- Wikipedia
