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Top 5 IR Sports Matches

Judah Grunstein | Bio | 18 Jun 2009

I actually had the idea for this post last week. But the news that members of the Iranian soccer team wore green wristbands during their World Cup qualifier against South Korea to signal their support for opposition protests back home made it even more timely.

So the following is a list of the Top 5 all-time sporting events with international relations overtones. It's admittedly U.S.-centric, both in choice of matches and sports, meaning that if you're looking for cricket matches that changed the shape of global history, you'll have to look elsewhere. Rankings are based on a combination of drama, significance and personal knowledge (or lack thereof).

1) U.S. vs. USSR, 1980 Olympic hockey. Seriously, for any American sports fanatic who entered adolescence in the last, icy decade of the Cold War, there's no way around the Miracle on Ice. I still remember being at a pre-teen party with all of us crowded around the set, and the wild joy -- among 12 year olds, mind you -- at the final seconds ticking off the clock. For context, this was back before Dream Teams, when Olympic athletes were still supposed to be amateurs. In sports that actually had professional leagues at the time, that meant, for the most part, American college kids playing against state-subsidized Soviet athletes in the prime of their careers. It's a testament to how cohesive this victory was with the Reagan-era narrative of American Renewal that I had assumed it had taken place in the months after Reagan's election. A quick Wiki-factcheck showed that it was, in fact, a bright spot of the Carter administration.

2) Hungary vs. USSR, 1956 Olympic water polo. Everything I know about water polo, I learned from my college roommate during our freshman year, when the Stanford men's team -- one of the greatest in college water polo history -- went 36-0. I'd always thought water polo was a sissy sport, until he methodically pointed out -- during the course of a few matches watched from the bleachers -- all the opportunities for a well-placed kick in the face or a quick yoking while the ref wasn't watching. The 1956 Olympic semifinals between Hungary and the Soviets came in the immediate aftermath of the bloody Soviet suppression of the Hungarian uprising. Known as Blood in the Water, the match is legendary among water polo players for the fact that the pool was apparently pink at the end of the match. The good guys won.

3) Jesse Owens vs. Adolph Hitler, 1936 Olympics. Nuff said.

4) Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling, 1936 and 1938 World Heavyweight boxing title. In contrast to the Jesse Owens story, this one strikes me as something of a caveat to the ways in which athletes -- in this case Schmeling -- can become symbols of ideological forces with which they have little or no sympathy. The intersection of the two men's trajectories with that of their countries, and the contrasts between the two, is one of the great illustrations of the complex entanglement between sports, domestic politics and international relations. Schmeling's victory in the first match has to be considered one of the great examples of using technical cunning to solve the problem of a superior opponent. His subsequent loss in the rematch has to be considered one of the great examples of underestimating that opponent's ability to make adjustments.

5) U.S.-USSR, 1972 Olympic basketball. One of the most confusing finishes to a sporting event ever, with Cold War-era conspiracy theories abounding. Phantom horn soundings,  questionable calls favoring the Soviets, and a last-second Hail Mary full-court pass handed the USSR a gold medal in a game the U.S. team not only protested, but for which it subsequently refused to accept the Silver Medal. In a truly Orwellian world, the footage of this game would be destroyed just to erase the evidence of how atrocious basketball uniforms of the era were. But really, ice or blood in Doug Collins' veins? Half-unconscious after winding up with his head under the basket support, he sinks two free throws with three seconds left to win the game set up the controversial last play.

Honorable Mention: El Salvador-Honduras, 1969 World Cup qualifiers. Don't really know much about this one, except that as a soccer fan, I remember reading about the Football War as a kid and thinking, These guys are crazy. But here I am, 30-odd years later writing about sports and international relations. Go Cosmos! Go figure.

I add a solemn mention of the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre of 11 Israeli athletes and coaches by Palestinian militants, which seems out of place on the light-hearted list above.