1976 Summer Olympics: History and Background

The 1976 Summer Olympics (French: Jeux olympiques d'été de 1976), officially known as the Games of the XXI Olympiad (Jeux de la XXIe Olympiade) and officially branded as Montreal 1976 (Montréal 1976), were an international multi-sport event held from July 17 to August 1, 1976, in Montreal, Canada. Montreal was awarded the rights to the 1976 Games at the 69th IOC Session in Amsterdam on May 12, 1970, over the bids of Moscow and Los Angeles. It is the only Summer Olympic Games to be held in Canada. Toronto hosted the 1976 Summer Paralympics the same year as the Montreal Olympics, also the only Summer Paralympics to be held in Canada. Calgary and Vancouver later hosted the Winter Olympic Games in 1988 and 2010, respectively. This was the first of two consecutive Olympic games held in North America, followed by the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid.

Twenty-nine countries, mostly African, boycotted the Montreal Games when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) refused to ban New Zealand, after the New Zealand national rugby union team had toured South Africa earlier in 1976 in defiance of the United Nations' calls for a sporting embargo due to their racist apartheid policies. The Soviet Union won the most gold and overall medals, with the Eastern Bloc having seven countries in the top 10 of the medal table.

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