Another terrorist atrocity overshadowed the Olympics when a bomb blast killed one person and injured 110.
Muhammad Ali lit the Olympic flame and American Carl Lewis became only the fourth person to win the same individual event four times (long jump) and the fourth person to earn a ninth gold medal.
Countryman Michael Johnson's double success over 200m and 400m was the first for a man in Olympic history, setting a new world record of 19.32 seconds in the 200m.
Steve Redgrave (his fourth) and Matthew Pinsent (his second) rowed to gold in the coxless pairs - Britain's only triumph of the Games.
France's Marie-Jose Perec won the 200m and then broke the 400m Olympic record, the best performance for 10 years. She became the most successful French female athlete of all time and the first sportswoman to win the Olympic title over 400m twice consecutively.
In the second round of the middleweight freestyle wrestling tournament, Elmadi Jabrailov, of Kazakhstan, faced Tucuman Jabrailov, of Moldova.
The two were brothers from Chechenya, but chose not to represent Russia because of the conflict with separatists in their homeland. Elmadi won the high-scoring but unusually friendly encounter by 10 points to 8.
British gold medals: 1
