Russian Basketball and the Olympics

It was the championship game at the 20th Olympic Games in Munich and the USSR and the United States were playing for the gold medal.

This was not your ordinary championship game. It was a nail-biting game and came down to the final seconds. The U.S. was down with the clock ticking down and managed to get a last second bucket. The Score was 50 to 49 in favor of the U.S. and the final horn sounded. The American players and coaches thought they won! But not so fast… Unexpectedly, the referees announced that the board showed the wrong time, since it has not been synchronized with stopwatches. There was actually still 3 seconds left in the game! After calming everyone down and getting the teams back on the court, the game was resumed.

Ivan Edeshko started with the ball in the final 3 seconds and passed the ball to Alexander Belov and down the court they went. The U.S. players played the final seconds as if they had already won and were caught off guard. Meanwhile, Alexander Belov stormed down the court and somehow made it to the rim uncontested. His shot beat the buzzer and went in. The USSR had won! The actual final score was now 51 to 50 in favor of the soviets.

The USSR had won against the United States before, but this time it was the first basketball USSR Olympic “Gold”.