Biggest scandal in Olympic history: The 1972 Munich basketball final (2024)

Team USA has refused to accept their Olympics medals until this day, while huge questions remain to be asked about the integrity of all people involved.

There have been a wide array of sporting scandals in the Olympics, from half of all boxing judges being fired for incompetence in 1960 to the Tonya Harding scandal, the Roy Jones Jr. bout, and the recent Kamila Valieva case. However, no other sporting event has caused so much controversy that it is still being discussed more than 50 years later.

The basketball game by itself and all the details that surround it are absolutely fascinating. Even more fascinating and devastating is the political and societal situation when the infamous final occurred.

The Happy Games

The 1972 Munich Olympic Games were supposed to begames of fun, joy, love, and freedom, or, as the Germans called them at the time,Die Heiteren Spiele– The Happy Games.

No official police or military security was allowed at the athletes' village. Instead, they had around 2000 security officers, often young adults, with light blue outfits and distinct white caps.

The security was lax deliberately, all in the name of portraying the new Germany, the one who has overcome the illness of Naziism. The 1972 Munich Games were supposed to be the antithesis of the 1936 Games in Berlin under Nazi rule.

Dachshund Waldi, the official mascot of the 1972 Munich Olympic Games

Credit Armin Weigel/dpa - Scanpix

"They just about waved you in as long as you had an Olympic logo on," Ed Ratleff, a 1972 US basketball team member, said.

"As guards, they had boys and girls dressed in pastels, not one with a weapon. The back fence was nothing," US track and field coach Bill Bowerman said.

Athletes would often climb over the fences to access the Olympic Village, and the security personnel didn't mind. Interestingly, when a protest began before the Munich Olympics, they dispersed the protesters by distributing candy, Don Yaeger from Sports Illustrated notes.

The loosened security turned out to be the worst thing the Germans could ever do.

The Munich Massacre

"A horror trip, the whole thing, a chain of catastrophes large and small."

That's how the Munich Massacre was described to Don Yaeger from Sports Illustrated by Dr. Georg Sieber, a police psychologist who was tasked to work with the German police before the 1972 Games and who predicted this attack happening but was mostly ignored by local authorities.

As the athletes were pursuing and achieving their dreams in Munich, a militant group from Palestine, Black December, was organizing an attack that would change the Olympics forever.

At 4:30 AM local time on September 5th, 1972, eight members of Black September snook into the Olympic Village. They were dressed in tracksuits to disguise themselves as athletes, as the security personnel was loose toward them.

The task of jumping over the fence was made easier by a number of US athletes, reportedly drunk, who were coming back from a night out in the city and who helped the militants, thinking they were just athletes from another country.

The eight Palestinian terrorists went straight to 31 Connollystrasse, where most of the Israeli delegation stayed, and headed upstairs to the room where Israeli coaches and staff were housed.

They were able to march down the Olympic Village so confidently because they had disguised themselves as fans from Brazil who were eager to visit their 'favorite' athletes.

The light-blue-dressed personnel let them in not once but twice leading up to the attack. One of the workers recognized them the second time around and convinced his colleague that they did not cause any harm.

As the militants entered the room, wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg resisted and blocked the door as much as he could. His effort gave enough time for his roommate, weightlifting coach Tuvia Sokolvsky, to smash the room's window and escape through it.

Weinberg, shot in the mouth and later held at gunpoint, was forced to lead the militants to the rooms where Israeli athletes stayed. Still maintaining a clear head despite being hurt, Weinberg went past a room where fencers and racewalkers lived and directed them to a room where wrestlers and weightlifters, men of much bigger stature, were housed, hoping to have a greater chance against the terrorists.

Unfortunately, it didn't help, as the men were asleep and didn't hear any noise from the initial break-in.

Black September took 11 athletes and led them downstairs to a separate room. One of the coaches, Gad Zabari, was able to escape through the underground garage, hitting one of the eight militants and running away.

The 11 remaining men were taken hostage. Weinberg was shot and killed. His naked body was thrown out on the street. Weightlifter Yossef Romano tried to fight the intruders but was shot and killed as well.

According to Sam Borden from The New York Times, Romano was also castrated and left in the room in a pool of blood while the nine remaining Israelis sat nearby.

A militant from terrorist group Black September, which captured 11 Israeli athletes and later killed them during 1972 Munich Olympics

Credit AP Photo/Kurt Strumpf - Scanpix

The terrorists demanded the release of a total of 236 prisoners by 12:00 PM local time. If not, they threatened to kill one captive every hour that their demand was not met.

The Israeli government refused to meet their demands, as it was the country's policy at the time, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir conveyed at the time. As the hours passed, local negotiators used all kinds of excuses to extend the deadline. They were seemingly successful, pushing back the time until 5 PM.

During that time, the local police came up with a plan to bring food for the Israeli athletes, hoping more than one militant would come to pick the boxes up. Additionally, two police officers disguised as chefs were brought in in hopes of Black September terrorists hopefully letting them in to bring the food directly to the captives.

It all failed and failed miserably. Israel offered to send in their special operations team for a rescue mission. The German authorities refused.

Later on, as the deadline was about to expire, a group of local policemen dressed as athletes planned to storm the building. Due to German laws, the army was not allowed to participate in the plan. Additionally, West Germany did not have a dedicated

The men who were selected had no training. Some of them climbed on the roof of the building and hid behind a wall just meters away from the place where the Israelis were kept captive.

The world kept its breath, watching the action unfold live on their TVs. The problem? Every room in the building had a TV as well, and the members of Black September watched everything live, too, and knew the exact positions of each of the policemen. The plan was scrapped.

"The Games must go on!"

It was an early morning when the Black September terrorists invaded the Olympic Village. Despite the International Olympic Committee (IOC) knowing about it, the events of the day that were supposed to start on the morning of September 5th started without any changes.

Only several hours later, the Munich Olympic Games stopped. The halt lasted for 36 hours.

A member of the Soviet basketball national team, Modestas Paulauskas, had trusted his accreditation and other Olympic documents to his friend, who would often use them to get access to places other fans couldn't.

As the hostage crisis was going on, Paulauskas negotiated with the security guards to allow him to leave the Olympic Village, an action that was otherwise forbidden at the time until the tragedy unfolded, so that he could take his belongings back.

"I get sick to my stomach when I think back and remember all the good feelings—that the world was watching, showing love and kindness—and then there's this horrifying attack. The athletes' families were so excited and proud, and all of a sudden their sons or brothers are coming back in caskets. It's made me very conscious of how fragile life is," USA's Tommy Burleson said.

"I grew up quickly. I realized how quickly life can be taken away from you. We were fortunate we weren't targeted—anything could have happened in that Village because it wasn't well protected," Kenny Davis added.

Team USA, as well as the Soviets, thought about going home after such a tragic event.

"Our first reaction was just to go home. It was just scary the way the German police handled everything. It was bad enough that these guys came in and kidnapped these folks and were going to kill them, but then the German solution seemed to be to shoot everybody. It's like, well, this is crazy. We need to get the hell out of here," Mike Bantom said.

A dedicated memorial ceremony was held at the Olympiastadion on September 6th. All flags were lowered to half-staff. Thousands of athletes and spectators gathered to pay respect to the eleven Olympic lives lost that week.

At the same time, the most important words were said. "The Games must go on," IOC's president Avery Brundage proclaimed.

IOC President Avery Brundage at the memorial ceremony on September 6th

Credit picture alliance/SvenSimon - Scanpix

Before the Game

Team USA was supposed to be even stronger than it was. The NCAA Player of the Year, Bill Walton, was missing. Although he played for the US in the 1970 FIBA World Championship in Yugoslavia, he didn't want to undergo the same treatment from the coaching staff again.

"You could not invent a more miserable human being than Colonel Hal Fischer. He made Bob Knight look like Mother Teresa," Walton wrote about the Team USA head coach of the 1970 World Championship in his autobiography Back from the Dead. "He was an arrogant, crude, vulgar, boorish bully of the lowest order."

Walton didn't want to go through the training camp and friendly games again. Instead, he promised to show up in shape at the end of the training camp and join Team USA right before the Munich Games. The US Olympic Committee declined.

"We realized one player who was missing. That was Bill Walton, the famous center. He wasn't coming. He was a hippie back then," USSR's Sergei Belov said during the movie about the game, :03 from Gold.

A month before the Olympics, Team USA held a training camp in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. However, the conditions there were far from optimal for Olympic athletes.

The main court where the players practiced still had blood marks from where fallen soldiers were laid in 1941. Mosquitoes had infected the room where the players stayed.

"The base was the worst decision. When you walked to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and you were wondering how many rats you would encounter, it just didn't make a lot of sense," Bobby Jones said.

"We should have been where there was no sunshine because we were in the gym probably about nine hours a day, practiced three times a day. I really don't know how we got through that. It seemed like it would never end. Hot. Mosquitoes. Practices were brutal. I mean, they were brutal! Guys just absolutely knocking the crap out of each other," Doug Collins added.

After a tough training camp, Team USA didn't impress during the friendly games before the Olympics. Nevertheless, Team USA and the USSR mostly cruised past their opponents in the group stage.

Before the semifinal stage, which got pushed back due to the Munich Massacre, only Yugoslavia (vs. USSR, 74-67) and Brazil (vs. USA, 61-54) managed to keep the games close.

However, despite a 66-point win against Japan (99-33), Team USA's head coach Hank Iba wasn't satisfied.

"Look at our team. Sometimes, we play what I call county fair or playground basketball. Then look at Russia. They do things the way they're supposed to be done," he said.

The Game

The start of the game was pushed to an unprecedented 11:45 PM local time, all to accommodate the US audience. It was 1:45 AM in Moscow, the capital of the USSR.

The newly built Olympische Basketballhalle, now BMW Park, was overflowing with people, so much so that King Constantine II, Queen Anne-Marie of Greece, and the Grand Duke and Grand duch*ess of Luxembourg couldn't find seats.

Instead, the Greek royalty chose to sit on the floor, not wanting to miss the game, Daniel Golden from Bloomberg writes.

Soviet sports minister Sergei Pavlov was turned down as well and instead watched the game on TV.

Up to that game, the US was 63-0 in the Olympics and 4-0 against the USSR in the finals. During the 1972 Olympics, it was the youngest Team USA to represent the country to date.

Both teams struggled to begin the game, missing shot after shot. Then, the USSR started pulling away.

They started the game with a quick 5-0 run, then Sergei Belov's jumper pushed the lead to 11-5.

Belov continued his dominance in the first half. With 8:39 remaining on the clock, he sank a jumper from the corner, pushing the advantage to 19-11. At the time, Belov himself had scored more points (12) than the entire Team USA combined.

The US defense picked up the pace in the following minutes, and the teams were separated by just five points heading into the half (26-21).

The second half featured two very important episodes, one after another, that changed the game.

With 12:04 left to play in the second half, USA's Dwight Jones and USSR's Mikheil Korkia got into a scuffle while fighting for a rebound after Sergei Belov's missed shot. Korkia seemed to have grabbed the ball for a split second when Jones attempted to take it away, seemingly putting an elbow toward Korkia's face.

The two players had to be separated by their teammates. However, lead referee Renato Righetto disqualified both Jones and Korkia, who had previously been told by his team to play on the edge of a foul, for their actions.

Jones was the USA's leading scorer, while Korkia averaged just 5 points per game.

"I get the rebound, and this guy comes with his airborne at the back of my head. I dropped the ball and turned around like I was gonna hit him, and the referee threw us both out of the game," Jones said during ESPN Classic's Big Ticket program in 2004.

"That was all Dwight's fault," USA's Ed Ratleff said. "I love the guy, but when you react like that, whether it's in a high school championship or in the Olympics, you can't let yourself get in a situation like that."

As both guys were ejected, the teams had a jump ball to determine who was going to control the next possession. USA's Jim Brewer and USSR's Alexander Belov were the two big men chosen for the jump.

While Team USA recovered the ball, Brewer awkwardly fell to the ground and violently hit his head on the ground. He couldn't continue the game.

"They knew Dwight had a temperament, and they could get him rattled. That was their purpose. They got him out. Once they got Brew out, those were our two biggest bruisers," Tom Henderson said during that same show.

With around 10 minutes left, the Soviets held a substantial 10-point lead (38-28). During a timeout with six minutes left, USA's Kevin Joyce urged the coaching staff to let the players loose, forgoing the head coach Hank Iba's system, playing faster, and pressuring the ball on defense instead.

Team USA battled back, and with three minutes to go, only two points separated the rivals. With 1:50 remaining, the Soviets' lead was cut to just one (46-47).

Mike Bantom picked up his 5th foul in the last minute. Tommy Burleson, meanwhile, was punished by Coach Iba and was permanently left on the bench due to the 7'2 center bringing his fiancee to the Olympic Village. With Jones ejected and Brewer visibly not in good condition, Team USA had no real threat under the basket, both offensively and defensively.

With 40 seconds to go, the USSR held a one-point lead (49-48) and had the ball. With the shot clock being at 30 seconds, the Soviets elected to keep the ball for as long as they could. Not wanting for the shot clock to expire, Alexander Belov threw an inadvertent pass, which was stolen by Doug Collins.

"We were just 6 seconds from victory. Alexander Belov had the ball, and if he had passed it to me, I would've held the ball under my shirt, and no one could've taken it from me," Sergei Belov said during the :03 from Gold documentary.

With 6 seconds to go, Collins sprinted down the court and was fouled in the act of shooting with 3 seconds remaining. It was a very hard foul by Zurab Sakandelidze, who simply just fell at Collins' mid-air legs instead of making any attempt toward the ball.

"It was catastrophic, like a nuclear bomb explosion. I hated Alexander at that moment. I was ready to kill him then," Belov continued. "He had ruined the victory with his own hands. All the training, the dreams we had, the victory we had achieved, all of a sudden, it fell to the ground."

Collins was left lying on the floor as his head seemingly hit the basket construction. I'll never forget it," Collins said during that same documentary. "Coach Iba with sort of that graveling voice of his saying, 'If Doug can walk, he's gonna shoot them.'"

Collins made both free throws in what was defined at the time as arguably the most tense moment for an American player in the history of basketball.

The USSR was down by one (49-50). Three seconds remained on the clock.

The Three Seconds

The Soviets inbounded the ball with three seconds remaining on the game clock. Alzhan Zharmukhamedov passed the ball to Sergei Belov, who sprinted with the ball down the court. With one second remaining on the clock, all hell broke loose.

The USSR's assistant coach, Sergei Baskin, charged at the scorer's table, demanding a timeout. The game was immediately stopped. USSR's head coach, Vladimir Kondrashin, quickly joined his colleague in arguing about the timeout.

According to basketball rules at the time, a coach could call a timeout either before the player's first free throw or between the first and the second free throws. The coach could do it by either pressing a specialized button that would light up a red light near the scorer's table or by approaching the table officials and showing a gesture of a timeout.

Kondrashin was adamant that he had called the timeout by pressing the button. "The idiots, they wanted to give me the timeout before the first free throw. Of course, I refused," he later said.

"It is highly unlikely that Kondrashin failed to call the timeout at the proper moment," writes Robert Edelman, the author of the book Serious Fun: A History of Spectator Sports in the USSR (p. 147).

In fact, late after the request, the horn sounded as Collins was about to shoot the second free throw. Lead referee Renato Righetto turned his head toward the scorer's table but let the play continue, as the rules do not allow a timeout once the ball is in the player's hands.

When Collins made the free throw, Righetto's colleague, Artenik Arabadjian, signaled the game to continue, and the Soviets inbounded the ball.

As the two teams were hunched over the scorer's table, there came a man who was in charge of it all, FIBA Secretary General Renato William Jones. Jones, who was previously sitting behind the Soviet bench, showed the table officials with his fingers that three seconds should be added back on the clock with his infamous 'Drei Sekunden.'

Coach Hank Iba and lead referee Renato Righetto arguing near the scorers' table

Credit AFP - Scanpix

"I can understand the people in the United States who have the feeling that they were robbed. No one from the table officials understood it. The only person who indicated three seconds was Mr. Jones," the game's scorekeeper, Hans Tenschert, said during the :03 from Gold documentary.

Perhaps worried they would lose their jobs, as the command came in from the most important man in basketball, both the referees and the table officials elected to put the time back on the clock, even though there was no rule or precedent for such a move at the time.

At the same time, Kondrashin subbed for Ivan Edeshko. The move was against the rules at the time, as, ultimately, no timeout was called or recorded in the game's report, and Edeshko did not order a substitution, a must for a player so that the table officials can inform the referees about a change on the court. Edeshko simply came onto the court.

The scoring equipment in the 1972 Olympics did not allow to add seconds to the game clock, only minutes. As such, a minute was added to the clock, and the countdown began.

Unbelievably, the game began before the timer reached the required time. The Soviets inbounded the ball with around 50 seconds (!) remaining on the clock. Seeing the referees' error, table officials sounded the horn when the Soviets had the ball near mid-court.

Team USA thought it was over and the game was won. They started jumping into each other's arms, celebrating a monumental comeback.

The horn kept sounding, and Renato William Jones was once again near the scorers' table, signaling three seconds. "There are another three seconds left," the PA announcer told the public.

The lead referee spoke Portuguese, the other referee spoke Hungarian, and French, Jones, and Iba spoke English, Kondrashin spoke Russian, and the table officials spoke German. It was a mess, as few people understood what was going on and what was being told.

Team USA wanted to leave the court in protest of Jones' action. However, the FIBA General Secretary told them they would instantly forfeit the game if such a move took place.

Reluctantly, Team USA headed back on the court. In the middle of the confusion, Coach Iba's wallet, containing around $400, was stolen.

In the end, Edeshko, who was on the court illegally, inbounded the ball, throwing it across the court to Alexander Belov, who caught it, defeating two Americans, James Forbes and Kevin Joyce, and scored the game-winning layup as the final horn sounded.

Ivan Edeshko celebrates the win

Credit AP Photo - Scanpix

The Aftermath

"I was very confused when they first put time on the clock," Joyce said. "I thought, 'What do you mean? You can't do this.' Then they don't score again, and they put time on again? When it was all over, I evaluated what went on, and I said, 'This is bullsh*t.'"

Team USA immediately started crafting an official protest. The US Olympic Basketball Committee chairman, Bill Summers, wrote it so quickly he misspelled his own name and wrote 'Summer' instead.

The text of the official protest:

The US is protesting the extra three seconds granted because the game, according to FIBA rules, was over.
The US was shooting the second of a two-shot foul. This free throw was made. At the point the free throw was made, three seconds were remaining.
At this point, according to FIBA rules, neither team can call a timeout. The official score sheet does not show a timeout in the last three seconds.
The opponents played the ball and ran off two seconds. According to FIBA rules, this was the only official way to continue the game.
With one second remaining, spectators ran onto the playing court and referees stopped the game at this time. At this point, with one second remaining, according to FIBA rules, they acted correctly.
When the spectators were removed, the game was started with only one second to go.
The one-second as played and the horn sounded, officially ending the game. The official score was US 50, Russia 49.
According to FlBA rules, the game is officially over.

The decision was laid in the hands of the Jury of Appeal, FIBA's highest institution. It consisted of 5 members:

Ferenc Happ (Hungary)
Claudio Coccia (Italy)
Rafael Lopez (Puerto Rico)
Adam Baglajewski (Poland)
Andreas Keiser (Cuba)

Coccia and Lopez, members of NATO allies of the US, voted in favor of accepting the protest. Baglajewski and Keiser, members from countries associated with the Soviet Union, voted against it.

Happ was the deciding vote. Hungary was a country at a crossroads with the Soviet Union, even orchestrating a revolution in the mid-1950s. Happ himself was quoted a number of times as being against the Soviet Union.

However, Happ was also quoted as a close friend of Renato William Jones. Happ voted against the protest, which was ultimately denied.

All 12 Team USA players collectively decided not to accept silver medals and would not show up at the medal ceremony.

The Soviet players were paid 3000 rubles each, a huge amount of money for the time, as the average salary was around 130 rubles.

Up to this day, neither of the Team USA players has decided to take their medals. In fact, all of them are being held in a vault in Switzerland, waiting to be retrieved by their rightful owners.

"I have placed it in my will that my wife and my children can never, ever receive that medal from the '72 Olympic games," Kenny Davis said in 2004.

The USA's top intelligence agency, CIA, even wrote a report on the game. You can read it here.

Jones' Integrity

Stories about Renato Williams Jones seemingly being corrupt surfaced. Reports have been written about him consistently taking bribes of various forms from the Socialist countries.

"He was always hoping that someone would beat the United States and level the playing field," instead said James Fox, the head of the Amateur Athletic Union from 1971 until 1981, which used to govern basketball in the US.

Referees from Eastern European countries were said to have been showering Jones with various gifts in hopes of receiving better games to officiate.

After his visit to Moscow in 1961, he came back with cartons of caviar, vodka, and a crab delicacy, Chatka, Daniel Golden from Bloomberg writes. Bottles and boxes, given to Jones, piled up in the Munich Olympics.

"We don't know what was in these things," table official Hans Tenschert said. "We wondered about the fact itself -- they are bringing presents. We in Germany don't do this."

Jones, meanwhile, continued saying he was acting in the best interest of basketball and was impartial.

"I have done my best to develop international basketball in accordance with the Olympic ideals, transcending barriers raised by politics, race or religion," Jones wrote in 1953. "I am not a Communist. I am a loyal subject of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and do not belong to any political party."

Alexander Belov passed away just six years after the Munich Olympics. Renato William Jones passed away in 1981.

*All quotes, unless clearly specified otherwise, were taken from David A. F. Sweet's book, "Three Seconds in Munich: The Controversial 1972 Olympic Basketball Final".