Goodwill Games: a historical perspective

The Goodwill Games, founded as a result of an extraordinary vision of international goodwill through world-class competition, have grown to become a premier international, multi-sport event and an important fixture on the international sports schedule.

The 1998 Goodwill Games are the fourth edition of the event and will feature some changes from previous Games. Scheduled for July 19-August 2 in the New York metropolitan area (Manhattan and Long Island), the Games will showcase 12 of the most popular sports. Approximately 1,300 of the world's best athletes from more than 60 countries will vie for the $5 million in prize money and record/performance incentives. This represents the largest purse in multi-sport event history. The venues are concentrated in Manhattan and on Long Island.

The Goodwill Games have re-defined "goodwill" for the event. The world's situation has changed since the Games were first held in Moscow in 1986, and the original impetus for founding the Games no longer exists. The Games have re-focused their mission to benefitting children. To achieve this goal, the Games have joined forces with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, enabling the Games to assist children through involvement in sports.

The Games' "gold medal" format - with virtually no preliminary rounds - positions the Goodwill Games to "unite the world's best" athletes in world-class competition. The top-ranked athletes and teams in the world are invited to participate in the Games based on performances at world championships and other major international competitions in each sport, as well as from the Olympic Games.

The Goodwill Games are hosted through a combined effort between Goodwill Games, Inc. and the participating sports federations, in conjunction with the appropriate state, city and county governmental agencies. Goodwill Games, Inc. is responsible for all aspects of the event. Goodwill Games, Inc. is a division of Turner Sports.

Past sites for the Goodwill Games are: 1986, Moscow; 1990, Seattle, Wash.; and 1994, St. Petersburg, Russia. An overview of the first three Goodwill Games, as well as of the Games' origins and future, follows.

The 1994 Games in the "new" Russia

When the city of Leningrad was selected in 1990 as the host city for the 1994 Goodwill Games, no one anticipated the changes that would affect not only the city, but also the whole country one year later. In just 11 months, a failed coup helped change the political structure of the Soviet Union, the host city was renamed and the agencies and partners staging the Goodwill Games changed.

A new local organizing committee was formed - the St. Petersburg Organizing Committee (SPOC) - to work with the Russian Olympic Committee and the sports federations to plan the third edition of the multi-sport event. By the time Russian President Boris Yeltsin officially declared the Games open on July 23, 1994, venues had been renovated, landmarks refurbished, modern telecommunications and transportation systems installed and thousands of residents had volunteered to help host the Games.

The staging of such a large-scale international event in the "new" Russia appealed to both the Russian people and millions of television viewers around the world, as well as to sponsors who saw Russia as an untapped marketing opportunity.

In all, 30 international sponsors supported the Games, establishing a new Games record for sponsorship revenue. SPOC also signed 22 local sponsors to provide funding and "in-kind" products for the Games.

The spectacular backdrop of St. Petersburg - the palaces of the czars, museums, canals and waterways, historical landmarks - shared center stage with compelling athletic competition. Approximately 2,000 athletes from 74 countries participated, producing some of the most exciting moments in Games' history.

• The USA's Melvin Stewart and Jackie Joyner-Kersee each won a third consecutive Goodwill Games gold medal, a feat neither athlete had achieved in any other international competition. Stewart defeated Russia's Denis Pankratov in the 200m butterfly; Joyner-Kersee was the champion in the heptathlon.
• Weightlifting was dominated by Russian athletes, and a total of five world records were set in two weight classes. In the 99 kg weight class, Sergei Syrtsov set world marks in the snatch, clean-and-jerk and total. Teammate Andrei Chemerkin followed Syrtsov's performance with world record-setting lifts of his own in the 108+ kg weight class, setting new marks in the snatch and clean-and-jerk to finish well ahead of the field.
• Figure skating saw local favorites capture gold medals in front of sell-out crowds. St. Petersburg native Aleksei Urmanov, the 1994 Olympic gold medalist, skated a near-flawless performance to take the men's title, finishing ahead of the USA's Todd Eldredge and France's Phillippe Candeloro. Natalya Mishkutyonok and Artur Dmitriyev, the St. Petersburg skaters who placed first at the 1992 and second at the 1994 Olympic Games, won their first Goodwill Games pairs title with a dazzling performance that brought the crowd to its feet.
• The debut of beach volleyball in a major international competition was a huge success, as sell-out crowds jammed the beaches at the foot of the Peter and Paul Fortress to watch Karolyn Kirby and Liz Masakayan of the United States and Jan Kvalheim and Bjorn Maaseide of Norway take the gold medals in the women's and men's events, respectively.
• Triathlon was also very popular with the local citizens and athletes as the running and cycling courses were lined with spectators. Great Britain's Simon Lessing won the men's competition, with the women's crown going to France's Isabelle Mouthon.
• Perennial boxing powerhouses Cuba and Russia continued their dominance of international competition by winning 11 out of 12 weight classes. Cuba won six gold medals and Russia took five. The USA claimed the remaining title.
• In one of the most anticipated events of the Games, the men's 100m, the USA's Dennis Mitchell bested a stellar field that included world record-holder Leroy Burrell, eight-time Olympic gold-medalist and former world record-holder Carl Lewis, world silver-medalist Andre Cason and U.S. national silver-medalist Jon Drummond.
• Women's cycling was swept by the U.S team, but the real story was the close finish of gold-medalist Brooke Blackwelder and silver-medalist Karen Bliss-Livingston. The two women finished the 25 km course - routed through the streets of historic St. Petersburg - at exactly the same time, and judges had to use the second tie-breaking criteria (winner of the final lap) to declare Blackwelder the champion.
• Gymnast Aleksei Nemov of Russia won more medals than any other athlete in the Games: four gold, one silver and one bronze.

Both the opening and closing ceremonies were held before standing-room-only crowds of more than 70,000 at Kirov Stadium. The Closing Ceremony included the passing of the Goodwill Games scepter to then New York Governor Mario Cuomo, marking the end of the 1994 Games and the beginning of plans for 1998 and New York, New York.

In all, the Games were broadcast to 129 countries around the world - a Games record. In the United States, a first-time agreement between the ABC Television Network and TBS allowed the Games to be seen by every television household in the United States. TBS Superstation telecast 64 hours of original, prime time programming, and ABC Sports broadcast 17 hours of coverage over three weekends.

1990 and Seattle

In 1990, the Goodwill Games coupled outstanding athletic performances with cultural and business initiatives that further established their reputation as a world-class event. More than 2,300 of the world's best athletes from 54 countries converged on Seattle to compete in 21 sports. To accommodate the breadth of the sports program, some of the sports were held in the neighboring city of Tacoma and two other communities, Spokane and the Tri-Cities area (Richland, Pasco and Kennewick).

As expected, a number of memorable athletic moments occurred during the 17 days.

• Three men broke the world record in the same 200m breaststroke race - the USA's Mike Barrowman got the record and the gold medal with a time of 2:11.53 while the USA's Kirk Stackle and Spain's Sergio Lopez tied for second at 2:12.24, also under the old mark.
• Three countries - Italy (men's volleyball), Yugoslavia (men's basketball) and Cuba (baseball) - won gold medals at the 1990 Goodwill Games and went on to win their respective world championships later that year.
• Surinam's Anthony Nesty validated his 1988 Olympic gold medal by outswimming the USA's Matt Biondi in the 100m butterfly race.
• In the 100m sprint showdown, the USA's Leroy Burrell edged past teammate Carl Lewis to win the gold medal before a sellout crowd of 30,000.
• China's 11-year-old Fu Mingxia showed the world a glimpse of diving's future when she claimed the 10m platform gold for her first major international title.
• In the women's individual all-around, Soviet gymnast Natalya Kalinina scored a surprise upset over favored teammate Svetlana Boginskaya.
• The USA's Kristi Yamaguchi won her first major international figure-skating title, defeating teammate and world champion Jill Trenary in the process.
• Soviet Nadezhda Ryashkina established a world mark of 41:56.21 in the women's 10 km race walk.
• The Soviet Union made its international debut in the sport of baseball.

The 1990 Games not only brought together the world's best athletes, but its art festivals, conferences and friendship initiatives also brought people from more than 50 countries closer together. More than 1400 Soviet citizens traveled to Seattle and stayed with local families.

Thousands shared perspectives and expectations at the Friendship Center. An audience of more than 482 million TV households worldwide brought people together from around the globe.

In conjunction with the Games, 11 separate conferences were held in Seattle on topics ranging from business to energy conservation. The Goodwill Games Arts Festival featured more than 1300 artists from 24 nations, with special emphasis on the Soviet Union. The Festival included the Bolshoi Ballet, the many-faceted Soviet museum exhibit Moscow: Treasures and Traditions and an all-new, multi-million dollar production of War and Peace, presented by the Seattle Opera.

Worldwide attention focused on the Games' competition as 81 countries televised the Games, and more than 1100 journalists from nearly 30 countries were on hand to cover the event. TBS' cable-exclusive telecast reached more than 45 million homes in the United States.

The inaugural Games

In 1986, the Games showcased more than 3,000 of the world's premier athletes from 79 countries, competing in 182 gold-medal events in 18 sports. In the process, six world, eight continental and 91 national records were broken. The Games marked the first time since 1976 that competitors from the Soviet Union and the United States participated on the same playing field in a major summer, international multi-sport event.

From the moment the spectacular opening ceremony began, the stage was set for a memorable sporting event. The first day of competition validated that anticipation when Soviet Vladimir Salnikov set a world mark of 7:50.64 in swimming's 800m freestyle.

Other competitive highlights from the Games include the following.

• Sergei Bubka set a pole vault world record of 19'8-3/4".
• A predominantly Soviet crowd cheered enthusiastically as the USA's Jackie Joyner-Kersee became the first to score over 7000 points in the heptathlon; she compiled a world record 7148 points to win.
• World records were set in both the men's and women's 200m flying start cycling race: Michael Hubner of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) at 10.244 and Erika Salumae of the Soviet Union at 11.489.
• Two-time Olympic gold-medalist Edwin Moses extended his personal winning streak to 111 consecutive races by capturing the gold in the 400m hurdles.
• U.S. world record-holder Evelyn Ashford defeated the GDR's Heike Drechsler in the 100m.
• U.S. high jumper Doug Nordquist recorded a personal best of 7'8" to post his first win over Soviet world record-holder Igor Paklin.
• Brothers Domingos and Dionisio Castro captured the 10,000m gold and bronze medals for Portugal.
• In the women's basketball finals, the United States broke a 152-game, 28-year Soviet winning streak against international competition by trouncing the world champions, 83-60. Brazil placed third.
• The Soviet Union won 11 of 12 gold medals in the boxing competition. The USA's Arthur Johnson was the only non-Soviet to claim a gold.
• The Soviet Union, led by Yuri Korolev and Yelena Shushunova, swept the gold medals in the individual and team gymnastics competitions. Only in rhythmic gymnastics was the Soviet's medal sweep broken; the GDR's Bianka Dittrich performed flawlessly to share top honors with Soviets Tatyana Druchinina and Marina Lobach in the rope event.

U.S. television audiences had access to more than 129 hours of television coverage via TBS and syndicated stations. Viewed in 66 countries, almost 200 hours of competition and ceremonies programming were made available to world broadcasters.

The birth of an idea

A look back at the Games' beginning makes it easy to understand why the Goodwill Games continue to gain momentum.

The 1986 Goodwill Games grew out of Time Warner Vice Chairman R.E. Turner's belief that the world's top athletes should be able to compete in an environment free from the political pressures that resulted in the boycotts at the 1980 and 1984 Olympic Summer Games. After 11 months of intensive preparation, the inaugural Goodwill Games in Moscow accomplished that.

With its elite, invitational format, the Goodwill Games provided a fresh, exciting, new atmosphere for sports competition. For the first time in 10 years, athletes from the United States and the Soviet Union competed on the same playing field at a major summer international multi-sport event. The 1990 Goodwill Games in Seattle and the 1994 Games in St. Petersburg further established the event's place on the international competition calendar. Now, as preparations continue for the fourth edition, the Goodwill Games are established as a respected, world-class event.

The winds of change have swept through Europe, and many of the walls and boundaries surrounding countries have fallen or changed, resulting in the need for the Games to re-define goodwill. From its original concept, the Games have evolved into a vehicle that is working for the benefit of children. To accomplish its new mission, the Games are providing support for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

The Goodwill Games' theme, "Uniting the World's Best," truly represents the competition's goals and objectives. The Goodwill Games provide the opportunity to assist children through involvement in sports and allow the world's best athletes a more frequent chance to measure themselves against each other in a major, international, multi-sport competition.