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The Liberty Bell Classic was a 1980 track and field athletics event organized by The Athletics Congress as part of the 1980 Olympic boycott and held at Franklin Field in Philadelphia on July 16 and 17, 1980.^[1] It was named after Philadelphia's Liberty Bell.

The U.S. Congress voted $10 million to fund alternative tournaments in several Olympic sports, to which athletes from boycotting countries would be invited.^[1] Besides the Liberty Bell Classic, the U.S. Gymnastics Federation held an International Invitational tournament in Hartford, Connecticut. Earlier in the year, the United States had considered holding other games in Côte d'Ivoire, Italy, Japan, West Germany or China.^[2]

The IAAF prohibited any official track and field meets that would clash with the Olympic meet, and so the Liberty Bell began three days before the Moscow Games opened (ten days before the Olympic athletics events began).^[1] The Liberty Bell came the day after the prestigious Bislett Games in Oslo and many eligible athletes declined to compete, including 17 of the 34 champions at the US Olympic Trials.^[1] The winning performances in two events, men's 110 m hurdles and 400 m hurdles, were better than those in Moscow.

Participants

Athletes from 29 countries participated in the event, many of which had taken part in the American-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics, including:

Medal summary

Athletics

Men's events

Event	Gold		Silver		Bronze
100 meters	Mel Lattany  United States	10.31	Harvey Glance  United States	10.31	Willie Gault  United States	10.33
200 meters	James Butler  United States	20.65	Fred Taylor  United States	20.66	Desai Williams  Canada	20.92
400 meters	Billy Konchellah  Kenya	45.59	Hassan El Kachief  Sudan	45.60	Bill Green  United States	45.79
800 meters	Don Paige  United States	1:47.19	Omer Khalifa  Sudan	1:47.27	Randy Wilson  United States	1:48.03
1500 meters	Steve Scott  United States	3:40.19	Omer Khalifa  Sudan	3:40.34	Mike Durkin  United States	3:41.40
5000 meters	Kip Rono  Kenya	13:37.52	Hillary Tuwei  Kenya	13:39.72[3]	Greg Duhaime  Canada	13:45.77
110 meter hurdles	Renaldo Nehemiah  United States	13.31	Tonie Campbell  United States	13.68	Hans-Gerd Klein  West Germany	13.94
400 meter hurdles	James Walker  United States	48.6	David Lee  United States	49.1	Bart Williams  United States	50.0
4 × 100 meter relay	United States (USA)	38.61	Canada (CAN)	39.54	Thailand (THA)	41.29
4 × 400 meter relay	United States (USA)	3:03.20	Kenya (KEN)	3:05.72	Sudan (SUD)	3:09.06
High jump	Benn Fields  United States	2.26 m	Nat Page  United States	2.26 m	Dietmar Mögenburg  West Germany Carlo Thränhardt  West Germany	2.22 m
Long jump	Larry Myricks  United States	8.20 m	Larry Doubley  United States	7.95 m	Carl Lewis  United States	7.77 m
Triple jump	Zhou Zhenxian  China	16.90 m	Greg Caldwell  United States	16.75 m	Steve Hanna  Bahamas	16.42 m
Pole vault	Tom Hintnaus  United States	5.50 m	Steve Lawry  United States	5.33 m	Zhang Cheng  China	5.18 m
Shot put	Youssef Nagui Asaad  Egypt	19.69 m	Ian Pyka  United States	19.58 m	only two competitors entered
Discus throw	Ben Plucknett  United States	61.46 m	Al Oerter  United States	60.76 m	Alwin Wagner  West Germany	59.48 m
Javelin throw	Shen Maomao  China	89.12 m	Tom Petranoff  United States	84.56 m	Gheorghe Megelea  Canada	79.24 m
Hammer throw	Scott Neilson  Canada	72.62 m	Boris Djerassi  United States	71.34 m	Andy Bessette  United States	69.08 m
Decathlon	Bobby Coffman  United States	8058	Lee Palles  United States	8009	Wang Kangqiang  China	7015

Women's events

Event	Gold		Silver		Bronze
100 meters	Chandra Cheeseborough  United States	11.27	Jeanette Bolden  United States	11.41	Karen Hawkins  United States	11.43
200 meters	Angella Taylor  Canada	22.77	Chandra Cheeseborough  United States	22.84	Karen Hawkins  United States	23.41
400 meters	Gwen Gardner  United States	52.04	Charmaine Crooks  Canada	52.33	Roberta Belle  United States	52.34
800 meters	Yvonne Mondesire  Canada	2:02.34	Robin Campbell  United States	2:02.53	Ann Mackie-Morelli  Canada	2:02.63
1500 meters	Mary Decker  United States	4:00.87	Julie Brown  United States	4:10.37	Francie Larrieu  United States	4:10.39
100 meter hurdles	Stephanie Hightower  United States	13.08	Benita Fitzgerald  United States	13.17	Esther Rot  Israel	13.20
4 × 100 meter relay	United States (USA)	44.57	West Germany (FRG)	45.26	Thailand (THA)	46.90
4 × 400 meter relay	United States (USA)	3:32.69	Canada (CAN)	3:33.50
High jump	Zheng Dazhen  China	1.92 m	Brigitte Reid  Canada	1.84 m	Paula Girven  United States	1.80 m
Long jump	Kathy McMillan  United States	6.65 m	Carol Lewis  United States	6.60 m	Shonel Ferguson  Bahamas	6.48 m
Shot put	Shen Lijuan  China	17.09 m	Ann Turbyne  United States	16.24 m	Lu Cheng  China	15.98 m
Discus throw	Xie Jianhua  China	56.56 m	Lucette Moreau  Canada	55.20 m	Lorna Griffin  United States	53.52 m
Javelin throw	Laurie Kern  Canada	57.42 m	Tang Guoli  China	55.30 m	Li Baolian  China	54.94 m
Pentathlon	Diane Konihowski  Canada	4640	Marlene Harmon  United States	4346	Linda Waltman  United States	4314

See also

• 1980 Summer Olympics boycott


• 1980 in athletics (track and field)


• 1980 World Championships in Athletics


• 
  Athletics at the Friendship Games, 1984 events in Moscow and Prague as part of the 1984 Summer Olympics boycott
  


• Politics and sports


• Goodwill Games

References

Sources

• Olympic Boycott Games


• The Olympic Games and Modern history

Citations