Members of the 1980 U.S. Olympic Track & Field team, including six Oregon athletes, were honored today during the Olympic Trials’ opening ceremonies and a trip to the State Capitol in Salem.
The team members arrived in Portland on Wednesday and toured the campus of Nike World Headquarters on Thursday. Gov. Ted Kulongoski met with the team members at 10 a.m. Friday morning before the athletes appeared before fans at the Trials’ main stage for an autograph session.
Under then-President Jimmy Carter’s order, the United States boycotted the 1980 Olympic Games in protest of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. The subsequent U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials, later dubbed the “Trials to nowhere,” were held regardless at Hayward Field – the last time Oregon’s legendary track stadium hosted the Trials until now.
“We were hoping it was still a rumor,” said Tom Hintnaus, who won the pole vault at the 1980 Olympic Trials and watched the 1976 Montreal Trials at Hayward Field as a recruit. “We just hoped that it would just go away. We still competed as if we were going in the Trials. I had been training since I was six years old. I came to the University of Oregon thinking that I was going to compete in the Olympic Trials and win them. That was my goal.”
Hintnaus competed for Brazil – the country he was born in – in the pole vault at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles out of disillusionment with the U.S. over the handling of the 1980 games. He presently lives in Hawaii and occasionally competes in Masters pole vault events.
Lynne Winbigler Anderson was the only Duck woman to make the 1980 Olympic team, competing in the discus. She married her husband, Colin Anderson, before finding out about the decision to boycott the Summer Games. Anderson then moved to Minnesota with her husband – a Minnesota native – and accepted a coaching position at the University of Minnesota. As assistant throws coach, she has overseen the development of Ruby Radocaj, who is currently seeded fifth in the javelin at the Trials.
John McArdle, who owns Oregon’s eighth-best hammer throw in history, made his only Olympic team in 1980. He currently serves as mayor of Independence, 15 miles from Salem, and director of development at Linn-Benton Community College.
Matt Centrowitz competed in the 1976 Montreal Olympics in the 1,500m, failing to place, and had qualified for the 1980 Olympics in the 5,000m. The father of current Oregon distance runner Matthew Centrowitz, he currently is in his eighth year as head track and field and cross country coach at American University in Washington, DC.
Pete Shmock finished ninth in Montreal in the shot put with a mark of 63-10.5 and looked to better it in Moscow. He now runs a health and fitness club in Seattle.
Alberto Salazar holds the third-best marks in school history in the 5,000m and the 10,000m and coaches five elite distance runners – including Oregon’s Galen Rupp – as part of the Nike Oregon Project.
The final Oregon athlete who made the U.S. Olympic team in 1980 was distance runner Bill McChesney, Jr., a qualifier in the 5,000m, where he holds the school record to this day. McChesney, 33, died in a car accident on the Oregon coast in 1992.
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