1972 summer olympics on cbc

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Vintage Ad #65 - The 1972 Summer Olympics
The Summer Olympic Games. It's good for Canada!...It's good for you! With a tag like that, all that seems to be missing is a tie-in to Participaction, which was getting off the ground at the time...but then the ad would have to be red and blue, instead of the classic 70s green spot colour used.

How good was it for the Canucks? We went home with five medals (two silver, three bronze), putting us on par with the Netherlands and North Korea. The Soviet Union led the gold count with 50, followed by the US (33), East Germany (20), host West Germany (13) and Japan (13).

Interesting to note which cities were among the finalists for these games: Montreal (who landed the next Summer Olympics), Madrid and Detroit. The Prelinger Collection contains a 1965 film promoting Motown as an Olympic site. Keep in mind that Detroit was only two years away from the '67 Riots when this was filmed.

Viewers and listeners would receive more than tales of the thrill of victory and agony of defeat from Munich, with the kidnapping of 11 Israeli athletes and a rescue attempt that failed.

Note that several of the channels listed for Ontario are currently not affiliated with CBC (CKVR, CFPL and CKNX now being part of the A-Channel system, etc).

CBC Archive Clips
* From 1966, a radio clip on Montreal's bid for the '72 Games.
* From 1972, an excerpt from coverage of the attempted rescue of the Israeli athletes.
* From 1984, Don Wittman recalls a close encounter with one of the hostage-takers.

Bonus feature: CBC's ID from the early 70s, before the "exploding pizza".


Source: Maclean's, August 1972 - JB

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