Cold War's Effects On The Olympics And World Conflict

Jenna Fallon

APUSH

Mrs. DelBagno

4 June 2023

The Cold War’s Effects on the Olympics and World Conflict During the Cold War, conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States caused many problems and changes for the Olympics. World conflict, during the cold war, affected the Olympics by making the games a place for competitions between the countries and their allies, worsening the relations between the United States and the Soviets, and causing the meaning of the Olympics to change in a negative way. The Olympics were the place where countries could show how much power they held, which caused lots of damage to the competition When the Olympics were first created they were supposed to symbolize friendly competition between nations and

At first, they believed that the games had no point to them and were not worth the time, but eventually “The USSR saw the Olympics as a means to display Soviet power. The Games provided an opportunity to show the dominance of the Soviet Union to the world, as well as to their own people” (Guided History). After realizing that the Olympics games were a place they could show off their power and money they put lots of time and funding into professional sports and into sports in schools. They even encouraged talented students to audition for professional teams in hopes of having the best athletes out of all the nations competing in the Olympics. Throughout the years the Soviets earned more and more medals as their athlete got better. They even beat the record number of medals that the United States had previously held. Because the Soviets wanted to show off their power their sports teams were more competitive while playing their sports, especially if they were against the United States or their allies. Some examples of these instances are the “Miracle on Ice” or the “Blood in the Water” match. The Miracle on Ice was an ice hockey match between the United States and the Soviet Union. In this match “The two teams were tied, 2-2, at the end of the first period. The Soviets ended the second period ahead, 3-2. But the Americans battled back to win the game, scoring two goals in the third and final period while holding the

They were still upset over the United States boycott in the 1980 Olympics and found that this was the perfect opportunity to get back at them. Because of the grudge the Soviets held against the United States, they decided to boycott the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. “They gave their reason as concerns over the safety of their athletes in what they called an anti-communist environment. This action was regarded by many as a retaliatory move for the 1980 boycott” (Olympic Boycotts). The Soviet allies also joined in on the boycott. This boycott by the Soviets did not affect the Olympics as much as it did in 1980. Instead, this boycott was able to bring more victory to the United States, helping them earn 80 medals. this boycott loved to even more conflict between the two Nations. their relations got worse and their competition with each other did not get