1960 Summer Olympics


The 1960 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XVII Olympiad and commonly known as Rome 1960, were an international multi-sport event held from 25 August to 11 September 1960 in Rome, Italy. Rome had previously been awarded the administration of the 1908 Summer Olympics. However, following the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1906, the city had no choice but to decline and pass the honour to London. The Soviet Union won the most gold and overall medals at the 1960 Games.
The 1st Paralympic Games were held in Rome in conjunction with the 1960 Summer Olympics, marking the first time such events coincided.

Host city selection

On 15 June 1955, at the 50th IOC Session in Paris, France, Rome won the right to host the 1960 Games, having beaten Brussels, Mexico City, Tokyo, Detroit, Budapest and finally Lausanne. Tokyo and Mexico City would subsequently host the proceeding 1964 and 1968 Summer Olympics respectively.
Toronto was initially interested in the bidding, but was automatically removed from consideration when it failed to return the IOC's mandatory questionnaire by the deadline. The questionnaire may have been mislaid in the confusion following the death of the Toronto bid's chief organiser, Robert Hood Saunders, in a plane crash weeks before the deadline. This was the first of five unsuccessful attempts by Toronto to secure the Summer Olympics, the most recent being a bid for the 2008 Games.

Highlights

File:Abebe Bikila sprints away from Rhadi Ben Abdesselam.jpg|thumb|right|Abebe Bikila of Ethiopia wins the marathon barefooted

Lowlights

Historical landmarks

  • South [Africa at the Olympics|South Africa] appeared in the Olympic arena for the last time under its apartheid regime. It would not be allowed to return until 1992, by when apartheid in sport was being abolished.
  • Singapore competed for the first time under its own flag, which was to become its national flag after independence, as the British had granted it self-government a year earlier. Tan Howe Liang won silver in the Weightlifting lightweight category, which was the first time that an athlete from Singapore won an Olympic medal.

Non-medal winners

Broadcasting

  • CBS paid for the exclusive right to broadcast the Games in the United States. This was the first Summer Olympic games to be telecast in North America. In addition to CBS in the United States, the Olympics were telecast for the first time in Canada and in Mexico. Since television broadcast satellites were still two years into the future, CBS, CBC, and TSM shot and edited videotapes in Rome, fed the tapes to Paris where they were re-recorded onto other tapes which were then loaded onto jet planes to North America. Planes carrying the tapes landed at Idlewild Airport in New York City, where mobile units fed the tapes to CBS, to Toronto for the CBC, and to Mexico City for TSM. Despite this arrangement, many daytime events were broadcast in North America, especially on CBS and CBC, the same day they took place.

Venues

1 New facilities constructed in preparation for the Olympic Games. 2 Existing facilities modified or refurbished in preparation for the Olympic Games.

Games

Participating National Olympic Committees

A total of 83 nations participated at the Rome Games. Athletes from Morocco, San Marino, Sudan (1956–1969)|Sudan], and Tunisia competed at the Olympic Games for the first time.
Athletes from Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago would represent the new West Indies Federation, competing as "Antilles", but this nation would only exist for this single Olympiad. Athletes from Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia competed under the Rhodesia name while representing the Rhodesia and Nyasaland">Rhodesia at the 1960 Summer Olympics">Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Athletes from East Germany and West Germany would compete as the United Team of Germany from 1956 to 1964. Athletes from the People's Republic of China last competed at the 1952 Summer Games but had since withdrawn from the Olympic movement due to a dispute with the Republic of China over the right to represent China. The number in parentheses indicates the number of participants that each country contributed.
Participating National Olympic Committees
Afghanistan|1960 Summer|12

Sports

The 1960 Summer Olympics featured 17 different sports encompassing 23 disciplines, and medals were awarded in 150 events. In the list below, the number of events in each discipline is noted in parentheses.
  • Aquatics
  • *
  • *
  • *
  • *Road
  • *Track
  • * Dressage
  • * Eventing
  • * Jumping
  • *Freestyle
  • *Greco-Roman

Medal count

These are the top ten nations that won medals at the 1960 Games: