IWF120y/33 – 1972: Weightlifting pays a heavy price on Olympics’ saddest day

The 1972 Olympic Games in Munich (GER) had entered its second week and were consensually considered a huge sportive and organisational success. The weightlifting competition was also well advanced, but everything came to a shocking halt on September 5. At around 4h30 in the morning, eight Palestinian militants, from a group called “Black September”, infiltrated the Olympic Village and penetrated the building hosting the Israeli delegation taking part in the competition. The group kills two athletes at the beginning of the operation and retains nine others as hostages. After a long day of unfruitful negotiations, terrorists and hostages were taken to a German military airport, supposedly to be flown to Cairo, in Egypt, as per the group’s demand. A rescue ambush plan was however executed by the police, but it failed and all the hostages lost their lives during the operation. Out of the 11 Israeli victims, four were part of the weightlifting family (four others were from wrestling, and one apiece from shooting, fencing, and athletics). Three lifters – Zeev Friedman (28 years old), Yossef Romano (32), and David Berger (28) – and one referee (Yakov Springer, 52) tragically died in what remains the saddest day in Olympics’ history. On September 6, after a memorial for the victims – attended by 80’000 people gathered in the Olympic stadium for the football game Germany-Hungary – the Games resumed following an unprecedented suspension for 34 hours.