MONTREAL 1976

Security, understandably, was obsessive in Montreal but the threat to the Olympic movement came this time not from terrorism but from Africa.

Angered by a New Zealand rugby tour of South Africa, suspended from the Olympic movement because of its racial separation policies, 24 African and Caribbean nations walked out of the Games.

The world was accordingly denied a classic 1,500 metres race between New Zealand's John Walker, the eventual winner, and his predecessor as world mile record holder, Tanzanian Filbert Bayi.

Viren repeated his Munich double and the giant Cuban Albert Juantorena completed a rare 400-800 double. Korbut turned up in Montreal but was eclipsed by 14-year-old Romanian Nadia Comaneci, who scored the first maximum 10.0 points at the Olympics on the first day of competition.

Before Montreal, East German women had not won a single swimming Olympic gold. Headed by Kornelia Ender, who set three world records, they won 11 of the 13 titles at stake. Meticulous scientific preparation and unprecedented attention to detail were the reasons given at the time. Documents available after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 revealed drugs systematically administered by the state had played a significant part.

For the first time the host nation failed to win a gold medal and the citizens of Quebec were landed with a bill they are paying off to this day.