Dhe day after the terror begins at ten o’clock with the funeral service in the Olympic Stadium. Or is it already the end? Nobody knows until the aged IOC President Avery Brundage murmurs the crucial five syllables: “The games must go on”. The games that must go on do it at 4.45pm with the handball match between Hungary and Romania kicking off – while 20,000 people are gathered at the Königsplatz in Munich for another memorial service. In the evening, 70,000 watched the West German soccer players lose 4-1 to Hungary.
Has the Olympic sport become irrelevant on this day? For many, that may feel like it. And yet he manages to create one of his great moments less than twenty hours after the deadly tragedy at the Fürstenfeldbruck airfield. The man who does this will not earn a medal in his fifth and final games.
6000 people are raving thanks to Dietrich
But the second in which Wilfried Dietrich manages to grab the 185-kilo American Chris Taylor, lift him up and throw him over his shoulder with an almost superhuman effort is unforgettable from the first moment. An icon of sports history. As Dietrich later recounted, he hugged Taylor when he greeted him to test whether his arms were long enough to hook two fingers behind the colossus in a grip.
It works, the 6000 romp in the hall, and even the wrestlers on the next mat pause for a moment, incredulous whether what they saw in the corner of their eye really just happened. The world association of wrestlers later chose it as the “litter of the century”.
In 1960, when Dietrich won Olympic gold in freestyle wrestling and silver in Greco-Roman style, he also finished second in the German weightlifting championship. But in Munich he outshone even the strongest man on the bar, Wassili Alexeyev, with his daring throw, which, according to trainer Heinz Ostermann, “could also be dead” if he failed.
Severe organ damage at Bonk
The Russian wins gold in the super heavyweight division on the same evening ahead of the two Germans Rudolf Mang (West) and Gert Bonk (East). Bonk becomes one of the most well-known victims of GDR competitive sport. Medical records identify him as the recipient of the highest doses of anabolic steroids. He suffers severe organ damage and spends his final years in a wheelchair.
The chemical muscle fattening in weightlifting is already no secret in Munich. Norwegian light heavyweight champion Leif Jensen estimates that “49 out of 50” of the world’s top weightlifters use anabolic steroids, including himself. The American Ken Patera announced before the duel with Alexeyev: “We’ll see which ones are better – his steroids or mine.”
Patera remains in the clean and jerk without a valid attempt. As well as another favorite in the snatch, the Belgian Serge Reding. The terrorist attack took a toll on his nerves. He knew two of the Israeli victims.
