Rté - The Olympic Years

Ronnie Delaney, who won the men's 1500 metres and the Soviets outmedalled the U.S. for the first time

Rome was a coming-out party for 18-year-old Louisville boxer Cassius Clay

24 years after wartime Japan resigned as hosts of the Summer Games, Tokyo welcomed the world to the first Asian Olympics.

The Games of the Nineteenth Olympiad were the highest and most controversial ever held.

A games that were to be marked by tragedy in the second week.

Games marked by a mass walkout and a final bill that the city could not afford

Four years after 32 nations walked out of the Montreal Games, twice that many chose to stay away from Moscow

The Soviet Union and 13 Communist allies stayed home in an obvious payback for the West's snub of Moscow in 1980.

159 countries sent more athletes totalling 9,465 to South Korea more than to any previous Olympics.

A record 10,563 athletes from 172 nations gathered without a single country boycotting the Games.

The most logistically complicated Olympics to date and perhaps the most hyped and over-commercialized as well.

Sydney 2000 has been hailed by many Olympic experts as the greatest Games of all time.