1980 Winter Olympics

The 1980 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XIII Olympic Winter Games, were celebrated in 1980 in Lake Placid, New York, United States of America. Another candidate city was Vancouver-Garibaldi, British Columbia, Canada; they withdrew before the final vote.

Highlights

An upstart United States ice hockey team, made up primarily of collegiate players, won the gold medal, defeating the heavily favored Soviet team and then Finland in the medal round. Their defeat of the Soviet team in the medal round became known as the "Miracle on Ice" in the US press. A film about the event, called Miracle, was released in 2004.
This was the second time the Games were held in Lake Placid.
First use of artificial snow in Olympic competition.
Although they did not get any medals, the People's Republic of China returned to the Olympics Games after the IOC agreed to designate the ROC "Chinese Taipei".
Ingemar Stenmark won both the giant slalom and the slalom.
Hanni Wenzel won the women's giant slalom and slalom, making Liechtenstein the smallest country to produce an Olympic champion.
Ulrich Wehling of East Germany and Irina Rodnina of the USSR won their respective events for the third time.
Aleksandr Tikhonov of the USSR earned his fourth straight gold medal.
Nikolay Zimyatov of the USSR earned three gold medals in cross-country skiing.
Eric Heiden won all 5 speedskating events (500m, 1,000m, 1,500m, 5,000m and 10,000m) he also set 4 olympic records and 1 world record (10,000m).
Robin Cousins won gold for Great Britain in the men's ice skating
The winner of the games was the USSR who won 10 golds, 6 silvers and 6 bronze.

The Olympic Ski Jumps.

See the medal winners, ordered by sport:

(Host nation highlighted)

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