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Almost predictably, the Games of the XXI Olympiad ended as they began —with sermons, squabbles and a threat to withdraw. Charging Canada with "planned provocation," Soviet officials said they might boycott the weekend events if a 17-year-old Russian diver who defected on Thursday was not returned. Meanwhile America's Dwight Stones, the world-record-holding high jumper known as "the Mouth with Legs," was quoted as saying that French Canadians were "rude, discourteous and ignorant." Before slipping to third place in the Montreal rain, Stones, who made public apology by donning an I LOVE FRENCH CANADIANS T shirt on Saturday, relished the uproar that resounded throughout the Stadium whenever he jumped. "This is not a show. It's the Olympics," chastised a judge. "But the Olympics are a show," replied Stones. Next curtain: Moscow, 1980.
* The move may have been exuberance, but it was not lost on shoe manufacturers or Olympic officials. Reports of payoffs to athletes of up to $25,000 by the Puma shoe company were being investigated at Montreal.