Olympic Games 1972

The sanctity and serenity of the Olympic Games were split early in the morning of Sept. 5, 1972, when Palestinian commandos, some dressed as athletes, scaled an eight-foot wire fence in the Olympic athletes' village at Munich, carrying bags stuffed with submachine guns. The eight men advanced on Building 31, which housed the men in the Israeli delegation. At 4:55 a.m. Moshe Weinberg, the Israeli wrestling coach, answered a knock on his door.

Mayo Genia answered the phone early Saturday and promptly flashed back to an anguishing experience of more than two decades ago. On the line was her husband. Television in Israel was reporting an explosion at the Olympics. He was checking on her. Genia turned on the television in her downtown hotel room and was immediately overcome by feelings of anger, frustration and helplessness. It was happening again. Just as she and her traveling companions had feared it would.

For most of the 2 million people pouring into Atlanta for the Centennial Olympic Games, these are exciting times. Not so for Mimi Weinberg. The Olympic Games, for her, are a somber time of remembrance: Her husband, Muni, was among the 11 people killed by Arab terrorists in Munich, Germany, in 1972. In the wake of the bombings at New York's World Trade Center and the Oklahoma City federal building--and the crash this week of TWA Flight 800--the fear of terrorism haunts Atlanta like a bad dream.

The dirty little secret of the Summer Olympics showed up at opening ceremonies Friday night, tapping a quiet beat on the consciousness of a world that wants to forget. They didn't march into the center of Olympic Stadium; they strolled around the back. They didn't sit together; it could not be arranged. They didn't carry signs; it is not their way.

Rick DeMont's quest to be reinstated 24 years after the Munich Olympics ended in disappointment Monday when the International Olympic Committee denied his petition for the second time in three months. The IOC executive board in Lausanne, Switzerland, rejected DeMont's arguments that the recent decision involving Samantha Riley of Australia, who tested positive for a painkiller in December but was not banned, warranted a different result in his case.

Steve Genter, Jerry Heidenreich and Gary Hall Sr. have morphed into Ryan Lochte and Ian Crocker. Yes, 36 years later. The first three, in no particular order, were the ones standing between Mark Spitz and a record seven Olympic gold medals at Munich in 1972. At the upcoming Summer Games, Lochte and Crocker will be the main protagonists standing between Michael Phelps and Spitz, conceivably blocking Phelps' bid to match or surpass Spitz. "Thirty-six years is a long time," Spitz said recently.

Silence -- for now. Avoiding the customary ruckus of pre-release promotions and Academy Awards campaigning, Steven Spielberg's "Munich" will be accompanied by a remarkably quiet publicity campaign before the controversial film's Dec. 23 debut. Spielberg and the film's cast and crew not only will steer clear of the usual TV talk shows and print interviews but also skip the countless question-and-answer screenings and cocktail parties that typically accompany a movie's Oscar pitch.

Filmmaker Steven Spielberg, who won his first Oscar for the Holocaust drama "Schindler's List," has taken on another tragic moment in modern Jewish history as his next project: the 1972 Munich Olympics. Spielberg plans to start production in June and is eyeing actor Ben Kingsley for a role in the drama, which will chronicle the Summer Games devastated by the kidnapping and slaying of Israeli athletes by Palestinian militants, a DreamWorks studio spokeswoman said Wednesday.

Allowing U.S. athletes to carry a highly symbolic American flag during tonight's opening ceremony may go far to honor the heroes and victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but it also stirs ghosts that linger from the Olympics' worst tragedy: the 1972 Munich massacres. Previous attempts to memorialize the 11 Israeli athletes and officials murdered at the '72 Summer Games have fallen short in the eyes of prominent Jews and families of the slain.

A small group of athletes and relatives of the 11 Israelis killed at the 1972 Munich Olympics gathered for a memorial service Sunday, standing in a moment of silence, listening to songs and speeches and promising not to forget the victims. The one-hour ceremony took place in cool, drizzly weather amid extraordinary security at the monument to the victims, a large stone tablet placed at the bridge linking the former Olympic village to the Olympic stadium.