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Home > Olympics > Summer Olympics > Mexico City 1968
Mexico City 1968
The Olympic Games, or Olympics, are an international multi-sport event taking place every four years which comprise of summer and winter games. Though the first ancient games were held in 776 B.C, the modern games started from 1896. The unity of the 5 continents is shown on the Olympic flag by five colorful intertwined rings of red, blue, green, yellow, and black, created by Baron Pierre de Coubertin to represent at least one color of the participating country’s national flag. Mexico City 1968 is also one of that Olympic. It was a summer Olympic XXVIII game.
The 1968 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XIX Olympiad, were held in 1968 in Mexico. It included 112 Nations, 5,516 athletes with 781 women and 4,735 men and 172 events. Opening ceremony was on 12 October 1968 with Mexico to be the host city.
Official opening of the games was done by President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz by lighting the Olympic flame by Norma Enriqueta Basilio de Sotelo of athletics. The Olympic oath was taken by Pablo Lugo Garrido of athletics. This Olympics games included 20 sports like as aquatics athletics, basketball, boxing, canoe or kayak, cycling, equestrian, fencing, football, gymnastics, hockey, modern pentathlon, rowing, sailing, shooting, volleyball, weightlifting and wrestling.
Bob Beamon’s spectacular long jump of 8.90m lasted as a world record for 22 years. The Mexico City Olympics, the first Summer Games to include sex testing for women, were blessed with many outstanding heroines. Mexican hurdler Enriqueta Basilio became the first woman to light the cauldron at the Opening Ceremony. Eulalia Rolinska of Poland, Gladys de Seminario of Peru and Nuria Ortiz of Mexico were the first women to compete in shooting. Wyomia Tyus of the United States became the first repeat winner of the 100m dash.
The most popular female athlete of the 1968 Games was Vera Caslavska, the Czech gymnast. After the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia two months before the Olympics, Caslavska went into hiding for three weeks. She emerged to win four gold medals and two silvers. The closing ceremony was on 27 October 1968 with United States of America being in the leading position with 45, 28, 34 Gold, Silver and Branz respectively. During this Olympic a huge amount of clean play and sheer determination amongst all the athletes were exhibited.
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