Swimming at the 1980 Moskva Summer Games:

The United States had won the last five gold medals in this event and had won it at the 1978 World Championships in Berlin in world record time of 7:20.82. In their absence the race came down to the Soviet Union winning quite easily over the German Democratic Republic, with Brazil coming in for the bronze medal. Although swim times come down almost every Olympiad, the Soviet time of 7:23.50 did not even better the Olympic record, set by the USA in 1976, which was then a world record.