The IOC president apologised on Wednesday for the body’s longstanding refusal to remember the 11 Israeli participants who were massacred by Palestinian extremists during the 1972 Munich Olympics.
IOC chief apologises for not recalling victims of the 1972 Olympic
Two weeks following Germany’s president apologised for his nation’s mistakes prior, through, and after the incident at a memorial event in Germany, Thomas Bach attended a ceremony in Tel Aviv commemorating the 50th anniversary of the tragic incident on the Munich Olympics. The Israeli Olympic delegation was targeted by the Palestinian organisation Black September on September 5, 1972, during the Olympic Games in Munich, which resulted in the deaths of 11 Israelis and a police officer. The athletes were “cruelly killed in cold blood by a Palestinian terrorist organisation solely for being Jews, just because they were Israelis,” as per Israeli President Isaac Herzog.
He mentioned that the Olympic torch was extinguished at this very time, and the five-ringed flag was covered in blood. The incident in Munich, according to Bach, was one of the darkest days in Olympic history and a violation of the Olympic Games’ principles. Everything the Olympic Games stood for was destroyed by the terrible incident on the Israeli Olympic team fifty years ago. He grieved that the International Olympic Committee had taken a long time to mourn the passing of the Israeli deceased in a respectful manner.
The assassination of the Israeli athletes was remembered during a moment of silence at the Tokyo Games’ opening ceremony last year, which was the first occasion in nearly 50 years that the Olympic Games’ organisers had done so. Bach remarked that he is sincerely sorry for this sorrow and this anguish that we inflicted. The relatives of the Munich victims vowed to boycott this year’s memorial ceremony, but the German government and they came to an arrangement last month to give them a total of 28 million euros ($27.6 million) in compensation
