| Noc: | ZIM |
| Nocname: | Zimbabwe Olympic Committee |
| Games: | Summer Olympics |
| Year: | 1980 |
| Location: | Moscow |
| Competitors: | 42 (23 men and 19 women) |
| Sports: | 10 |
| Flagbearer: | Abel Nkhoma[1] |
| Rank: | 23 |
| Gold: | 1 |
| Silver: | 0 |
| Bronze: | 0 |
| Appearances: | auto |
| See also: | (1928-1964) |
Zimbabwe competed at the 1980 Summer Olympics in the Soviet Union capital, Moscow. The nation, previously known as Rhodesia, had competed at three Games under that name. 42 competitors, 23 men and 19 women, took part in 30 events in 10 sports.[2]
See main article: article and Archery at the 1980 Summer Olympics. Zimbabwe was represented by one archer in the Archery at the 1980 Olympics, with him making his only appearance in the Olympics. In the competition David Campbell Milne finished in 34th place outscored four archers.[4]
Men's Individual Competition:
See main article: article and Athletics at the 1980 Summer Olympics. Zimbabwe was represented by five male athletes in the athletics at the 1980 Olympics, Zephaniah Ncube who at the time was 23 competed in his first Olympics.[6]
Kenias Tembo competed in the 10,000 meters in what would be his only Olympics.[7] In his heat, he would finish in 10th place which didn't get him through to the final as the top 4 got through to the final automatically with the next best three getting in.[8]
Zimbabwe entered three in the marathon, with two of them finishing. The youngest of the three, Tapfumaneyi Jonga who would compete at the shorter events in the next Olympics finished the highest as he finished in 51st place with the gap to first place being over thirty-five minutes.[9] Six minutes behind was Abel Nkhoma who was the last runner to finish in the marathon.[10]
| Athlete | Event | Heat | Quarterfinal | Semifinal | Final | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Result | Rank | Result | Rank | Result | Rank | Result | Rank | ||
| Zephaniah Ncube | 5000 m | 14:06.7 | 10 | did not advance | |||||
| Kenias Tembo | 10000 m | 30:53.8 | 10 | did not advance | |||||
| Tapfumaneyi Jonga | align=left rowspan=3 | Marathon | 2:47.17 | 51 | |||||
| Abel Nkhoma | 2:53:35 | 53 | |||||||
| Laswell Ngoma | DNS | ||||||||
See main article: article and Cycling at the 1980 Summer Olympics. Three cyclists represented Zimbabwe in 1980.
See main article: article and Diving at the 1980 Summer Olympics. Men's Springboard
Men's Platform
See main article: article and Hockey at the 1980 Summer Olympics. After the boycott the committee sent out invitations for other nations to join the women's competition. Zimbabwe agreed to the invitation and in their only appearance in the Olympic hockey to date, they would take out the gold medal as they shocked the whole world in taking it out.[11] Sport historian Cathy Harris called this result a "fairytale" as the nation wouldn't get another medal until the 2004 Summer Olympics.[12]
See main article: article and Zimbabwe women's national field hockey team at the 1980 Summer Olympics.
| width=20 | Rk | width=175 | Team | width=20 | Pld | width=20 | W | width=20 | D | width=20 | L | width=20 | GF | width=20 | GA | width=20 | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| align=left |  Zimbabwe | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 13 | 4 | 8 | |||||||||
| align=left | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 10 | 5 | 7 | ||||||||||
| align=left | 5 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 11 | 5 | 6 | ||||||||||
| 4 | align=left | 5 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 9 | 6 | 5 | |||||||||
| 5 | align=left | 5 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 11 | 4 | |||||||||
| 6 | align=left | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 18 | 0 |
----------------
See main article: article and Judo at the 1980 Summer Olympics.
See main article: article and Sailing at the 1980 Summer Olympics.
See main article: article and Shooting at the 1980 Summer Olympics.
See main article: article and Swimming at the 1980 Summer Olympics. Men's 100m Freestyle
Men's 200m Freestyle
Men's 100m Butterfly
Women's 100m Freestyle
Women's 100m Breaststroke
Women's 200m Breaststroke
See main article: article and Weightlifting at the 1980 Summer Olympics.