Canoeing

• The prophets of the canoeing world had predicted that the USSR would triumph in at least 9 of the 11 classes for which there were gold medals to be won at the 1980 Olympic regatta. At Montreal the USSR had won 6 of 11 titles and at Munich 6 out of 7.

• Sergei Postrekhin (USSR) was favored to win the single canoe 1,000 metres gold but is beaten by Lubomir Lubenov of Bulgaria.

• In canoeing Australia won its first medal since 1956.

• Ivan Patzaichin (Romania) won gold medals over a 16 year period,1968–1984.

• Apart from the boycott of the LA Olympics Birgit Fischer (East Germany) won medals in each Olympics from 1980–2004. In the 500 metres kayak singles for women she won gold in Moscow, silver in Seoul, gold in Barcelona.

• Uladzimir Parfianovich of the USSR won 3 gold medals in canoeing.

Cycling

• Lothar Thoms of East Germany won the 1,000 metre individual pursuit cycling gold, breaking the world record by nearly 4 seconds.

• The surprise winner of the bronze in that race was Jamaica's David Weller who also broke the 16 year old world record.

• In the 4,000 metre team pursuit qualifying heats new world indoor records were set 8 times.

• In the 4,000 metre individual pursuit the Olympic flag was flown for all 3 medal winning positions – Switzerland gold, France silver, Denmark bronze. Robert Dill-Bundi became the 1st Olympic champion in the history of Swiss cycling.

• The 189 kilometer individual road race gold was won by Sergei Sukhoruchenkov (USSR). British team manager Peter Crinnon called it "The greatest exhibition of power riding ever". Sukhoruchenkov is voted best racer in the world by the International Amateur Cycling Federation.

• In this race only a photo-finish can tell the next 2 finishers apart, giving the silver medal to the Polish cyclist and the bronze to a Soviet cyclist.

• The cycling team road race is won by the Soviet team as they had done in Munich and Montreal.

• In cycling world records were toppled 21 times.

Diving

• As Aleksandr Portnov waited to do a 2 and 1/2 reverse somersault in the springboard final, cheers broke out in three adjoining swimming pool during the closing stages of Salnikov's world record breaking 1,500m swim. The diver delayed his start until the noise had subsided but, as he took his first steps along the board, even greater cheers broke out as Salnikov touched in under 15 minutes. Under the rules Portnov, having started, could not stop before take-off. He crashed badly. On protest to the Swedish referee G.Olander he was allowed to repeat the dive and went ahead again of Mexico's Carlos Girón. Later protests by Mexico against the re-dive and by East Germany that their Falk Hoffmann wanted to re-dive after allegedly being disturbed by photographic flashlights were both turned down by the International Amateur Swimming Federation (FINA). FINA President Javier Ostas of Mexico stated that the decision taken by the Swedish referee was the "correct one. FINA assessed all the Olympic diving events and considers the judging to have been objective". Portnov remained the winner with Giron taking silver and Cagnatto of Italy bronze.

• Martina Jaschke (East Germany) was 4th after the preliminary high dives, behind 2 Soviets and a Mexican, but came back to win gold on the second day of competition.

• Irina Kalinina (USSR) won gold in the springboard final. As a result of her 10 dives in the preliminaries she amassed a unique number of points : 478.86. In the previous 4 years no diver had scored so many.

• In this final the Mexican judge A.Marsikal allowed Karin Guthke (East Germany) re-take a dive. Guthke then won bronze ahead of the Soviet Zhanna Tsirulnikova.