Shots rang out around 4 a.m. as a silence fell over the Olympic Village.
In a few quick moments the serene setting surrounding the 1972 Munich Olympic Games changed forever.
Frank Shorter and Dave Wottle were roommates and asleep inside the U.S. embassy early that morning. If their incredible stories of winning Munich
Olympic distance gold weren’t enough, they were instantly bonded by terrorist acts never seen before in the 76-year history of
the Olympic Games. Demanding the release of its prisoners held by
Israel, a Palestinian group took Israeli athletes hostage inside the Olympic Village. When the
events had concluded, 11 Israeli athletes were killed along with one German police officer.
Shorter recalls the moments following the initial gun shots.
“I got up and there wasn’t a sound,” Shorter recalled in a phone interview in June. “It sounded like the jungle does when a predator is out on the prowl.”
The Games were suspended for one day as members of Team USA’s track and field team followed the events on TV. Fellow distance runner Steve Prefontaine, who grew
up in a German speaking household, translated the German broadcasts.
In the midst of the London Olympic Games, it marks the 40th anniversary of both the tragic events of the Munich Games and the celebration of Olympic gold for Shorter and Wottle.
Gold medalists in events where Americans weren’t typically
strong, Shorter and Wottle can both be credited with helping start the heavy interest in distance running in this country.
Shorter won the men’s marathon in Munich and, when paired with
his silver medal at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games, he remains the only American to win two medals in the men’s marathon.
Wottle, a relative newcomer on the international level in the event, came all the way from last place in the final 300 meters to claim the gold medal
in the final moments. He remains the last American to win an Olympic gold medal in the men’s 800m.
Both inductees of the National Track & Field Hall of Fame, the past four decades have been spent around the sport that made them famous and each still revel in their experiences in Munich.