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Liberty Bell Classic

Sports event held on July 16 and 17, 1980


Sports event held on July 16 and 17, 1980

FieldValue
eventLiberty Bell Classic
imageFranklin Field aerial.jpg
captionFranklin Field, the event's venue
venueFranklin Field
locationPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
datesJuly 16–17, 1980
nations29

The Liberty Bell Classic was a track and field athletics event organized by the Athletics Congress as part of the 1980 Summer Olympics boycott and held at Franklin Field at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia on July 16 and 17, 1980. It was named after Philadelphia's Liberty Bell.

The U.S. Congress voted to approve $10 million in funding to alternative tournaments in several Olympic sports, to which athletes from boycotting countries would be invited. In addition to the Liberty Bell Classic, the U.S. Gymnastics Federation held an International Invitational tournament in Hartford, Connecticut. Earlier in the year, the United States had considered holding other games in Côte d'Ivoire, Italy, Japan, West Germany, or China.

The IAAF prohibited any official track and field meet that would clash with the Olympic meet, so the Liberty Bell began three days before the Moscow Games opened (and ten days before the Olympic athletics events began). The Liberty Bell came the day after the prestigious Bislett Games in Oslo, and many eligible athletes declined to compete, including 17 of the 34 champions at the US Olympic Trials.

Participants

Athletes from 29 countries participated in the event, many of which had taken part in the American-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics, including:

  • ATG
  • BAH
  • BAR
  • BER
  • CAN
  • CAF
  • CHI
  • CHN
  • EGY
  • GAM
  • IRL*
  • ISR
  • ITA*
  • CIV
  • JPN
  • KEN
  • LUX*
  • NZL
  • PHI
  • KOR
  • SUD
  • Swaziland
  • THA
  • TOG
  • TUR
  • USA
  • ISV
  • FRG
  • ZAI

Countries marked with an asterisk (*) went on to be represented in the 1980 Summer Olympics under the Olympic flag.

Medal table

The medals at the event were:

List of Medalists

Men's events

Source:

DecathlonBobby Coffman8058Lee Palles8009Wang Kangqiang7015

Women's events

Source:

PentathlonDiane Konihowski4640Marlene Harmon4346Linda Waltman4314

References

References

  1. Marshall, Joe. (July 28, 1980). "...and meanwhile in Philadelphia".
  2. (2004-08-29). "Secret US plot to steal Moscow's Olympic flame".
  3. "Olympic Boycott Games".
  4. (July 18, 1980). "Thunder is heard from U.S.". [[Asbury Park Press]].
Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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