Hello and welcome to Whistle Stop, a podcast of the presidency.

I'm John Dickerson of CBS this morning.

1980 was a year of Olympic highs and lows.

In the winter games, in Lake Placid, New York,

the American hockey team pulled off an upset win over America's bitter rivals,

the heavily favored Soviet Union hockey team, in the

semifinal game.

Five seconds left in the game.

You believe in miracle?

Yes.

American hockey team would go on to win the gold.

American kids in gyms, in pools, and on running tracks cheered and awaited their chance to take on the Cold War

adversary in the Summer Olympics. It was a great, great Winter Olympics, said Glenn Mills,

a swimmer for us, and we weren't even supposed to be that good in the Winter Olympics.

We were thinking, wait until we do our thing in the summer. It was such an emotional

high. We were so happy for all of them, and we couldn't wait to do it ourselves. Or there were those

kids who were in their summertime sports who weren't thinking about getting their shot to contribute

to the geopolitical push and pull. They just wanted to compete in the summer Olympics in the sport they'd worked at before the sun came up, and the paper landed on the front lawn.

But those kids were denied that chance. America Boyk had the Summer Olympic Games in 1980 in response to the Russian occupation of Afghanistan.

Here, on the eve of the next Winter Olympiad, we'll have the story of

that decision by President Jimmy Carter after a word from our sponsor. Our whistle stop today is

February 5th, 1980, and heavyweight champion, Muhammad Ali has landed in Tanzania on a diplomatic

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