Before the World Cup, a Seattle sports spectacle helped thaw Cold War

Seattle charter bus driver Michael Marti was taking the Soviet Union's gymnastics team to the Tacoma Dome when something surprising happened.

The trainer for the team of world-class gymnasts noticed Marti rubbing the back of his tired neck … and started giving him a mid-drive massage.

"And boy, he did a good job," Marti, 73, said decades later, recalling the quirky, hands-on nature of the event the Seattle area was hosting at the time.

These were the 1990 Goodwill Games, an international sports competition created by cable television magnate Ted Turner to ease Cold War relations a generation before Seattle started preparing for the 2026 FIFA Men's World Cup.

The city's collective memory of the Goodwill Games has dimmed somewhat, and the Games were less illustrious than soccer's World Cup tournament, which Seattle is scheduled to co-host in June and July.

Still, the Games may be the most comparable event to the World Cup in the city's history, because they brought elite athletes here amid political tensions, put civic leaders under pressure and gave the Pacific Northwest a spotlight.

Fans saw cycling in Redmond, swimming in Federal Way, weightlifting in Spokane and basketball at the Seattle Center Coliseum, among other things.

"For a brief moment, Seattle felt like the center of the sporting world," remembered Jary Krauser, 64, of Mercer Island, who volunteered at the Games and ran in a marathon that was open to everyone.

Now that Seattle officials, business people and ordinary residents are getting ready for the World Cup - including hosting a possible match between Iran and Egypt during a U.S. war with Iran - the highs, lows and lessons of the 1990 Games are worth another look.

The Goodwill Games didn't make huge money, stuff every hotel or bring about world peace. But they got a lot of local people involved and built cultural connections to an extent the increasingly corporatized World Cup may not.

More than 1,000 Soviet spectators stayed as guests with Seattle-area families. They went roller-skating at Green Lake, shopped for bluejeans and marveled at the selection of groceries available in supermarkets like QFC.

Hundreds of people volunteered for the Games, and the sports were supplemented by a wide array of arts and cultural programs. Those aspects contributed to a sense of optimism about the future, said Jarlath Hume, a civic booster who helped organize the 1990 extravaganza.

"There was tremendous hope," said Hume, 79, of Madrona.

Cold War context

Turner, who died May 6, came up with the Goodwill Games as a global sports alternative after the U.S.-led boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow and Soviet-led boycott of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

The TV bigwig had started CNN, bought the Atlanta Braves and won the America's Cup sailing race. Turner's ambition was running high as he organized the inaugural Goodwill Games in Moscow in 1986 and went searching for an American city to host the second edition of the competition.

"He was a very unconventional guy," recalled Hume, who met Turner after Seattle sports promoter Bob Walsh led the city's bid. "You could listen to him talk for an hour and a half because he couldn't stop talking."

Turner was persuasive, but there were risks. When Seattle bid to host the 1990 Games, the Cold War had only just started to thaw and most Americans associated the Soviet Union with the threat of nuclear Armageddon.

The two countries were entirely isolated from each other," said Doug Jewett, who helped organize the Games while serving as Seattle's city attorney.

Then as now, "Seattle was much more open politically" than some other potential host cities, which probably helped win Turner over, Hume said.

This year's World Cup soccer matches will take place in 16 cities across the U.S., Mexico and Canada. But the Seattle area was on its own in 1990. To secure state funding, public relations maven Gretchen Sorensen brought U.S. hurdler Edwin Moses and Soviet hammer thrower Yuriy Sedykh to Olympia to take photos with lawmakers: "We got all the money we needed," she said.

In the months leading up to the 1990 Games, the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union began to break up. Seattle officials could breathe easier.

Now the city's leaders are eyeing a World Cup match featuring Iran during a U.S.-Israeli war against that country. Protests could easily erupt here.

Getting ready

Seattle in 1990 was a smaller city with less wealth, international prominence and corporate gloss. The dot-com boom and Amazon were still to come.

Yet there are parallels between the Seattle that prepared for the Goodwill Games and the version getting ready for the World Cup this summer.

Seattle had a new mayor in 1990, Norm Rice. The Games were a test that his administration hurdled without major missteps, although Rice was left out of the opening ceremonies at Husky Stadium, which featured speeches from former President Ronald Reagan and movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The Games stimulated some infrastructure improvements, including the construction of a regional aquatics center in Federal Way. Security measures were put in place at the University of Washington, where the athletes stayed.

Seattle leaders pushed to open the city's new downtown bus tunnel for the Games. But King County Metro said more time was needed for testing.

There were police crackdowns on prostitution on Aurora Avenue North in the months leading up to the Games. There were also efforts to stamp out street crime and add public restrooms.

In response to concerns about homeless people being displaced, a new group called Seattle Housing and Resource Effort, or SHARE, set up a "Goodwill Gathering" in Myrtle Edwards Park where they could congregate. The group moved to Sodo after the Games and later that year established a self-managed encampment called Tent City 1.

Now Katie Wilson is Seattle's new mayor, and her administration is dealing with pressures similar to those faced by civic leaders in 1990.

She recently approved police cameras near Lumen Field, where the World Cup matches will play out, while pausing a surveillance expansion elsewhere due to concerns about President Donald Trump's deportation campaign.

Homelessness has exploded since 1990, and Wilson has promised to add 500 shelter units before the World Cup kicks off. In the meantime, her administration is removing encampments. SHARE is still operating tent cities.

Downtown remains under-toileted, although a few new units opened Friday in Pioneer Square.

Transit is a bright spot: Seattle's bus tunnel now serves a light rail system that recently extended across Lake Washington, just in time for the World Cup.

Sports excitement

Along with the teams from Egypt and Iran, Seattle's 2026 World Cup planned matches involve Australia, Belgium and Bosnia, among other countries.

In 1990, 2,300 athletes from 54 countries participated, competing in 21 sports over 17 days at venues in Seattle and across Washington. There were Kenyans, Swedes, Moroccans, Jamaicans, Hungarians and Mongolians.

The Soviet Union earned the most medals, followed by the U.S. and East Germany. The U.S. participants included Carl Lewis and Jackie Joyner-Kersee in track, Alonzo Mourning in basketball and Oscar De La Hoya in boxing.

The tickets were inexpensive compared with the thousands of dollars that some 2026 World Cup spectators are shelling out. Harry Haslam, of Seattle, remembers paying $10 to see women's basketball and men's volleyball.

"It was great to watch our Olympic-level players," Haslam said.

There were celebrity sightings, including of Turner and his actor girlfriend Jane Fonda. Scott McMillan, 47, recalls spotting pro basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain sitting alone in the Coliseum (now Climate Pledge Arena) watching men's handball.

Kathie Alfstad volunteered at the Games as an usher, including for a boxing match between a "very hairy Russian guy" and an American, she said.

"I was pretty close to the ring. So close that I was spattered with sweat and blood when the punches landed," recounted Alfstad, 77, of Kirkland.

Large numbers of amateur runners entered a Goodwill Games marathon alongside international runners on a sweltering summer day.

"We treated many cases of heat stroke," said Deborah Riehl, a nurse who worked in a medical tent at the marathon's Husky Stadium finish line.

"We were so busy I remember one woozy man being discharged with two ice bags still stuffed in his shorts," said Riehl, from Bothell.

Personal connections

What also made the Games special were the personal touchpoints.

Soviet sailors docked in Seattle. Soviet athletes sold their smelly uniforms to UW students as souvenirs. Russian artworks and artifacts were exhibited at the Convention Center. Bolshoi Ballet dancers headlined an arts festival. Soviet and U.S. opera singers collaborated on a performance of "War and Peace."

Most unusually, an exchange program brought Soviet citizens to stay as guests in Seattle homes during the Games, with help from the Rotary Club.

Sharon Lucas hosted a young woman named Valentina from Soviet Kazakhstan who was selected via lottery to attend the Games.

Valentina was stunned by Seattle's consumer bounty, compared with the meager choices and bare shelves in her country's communist system, where government directives trumped supply and demand, Lucas said.

"She had no concept of a market economy," said Lucas, 80, from Wallingford, who took Valentina roller-skating and grocery shopping. "There was a gasp of surprise when she saw cash come out of an ATM."

The Americans learned things, too, said Jeff Gingold, a Bainbridge Island attorney who bought his Goodwill Games guest a bottle of vodka as a welcome present based on a stereotype about hard-drinking Russians. The guest, a brusque and clean-living Soviet handball coach, was not amused.

"He looked at me like I was the biggest idiot in the world," said Gingold, 78.

The same man later invited Gingold to a match against Yugoslavia and steered him to a courtside seat. Before returning to the Soviet Union, the coach and his players loaded up on electronics at a store in downtown Seattle, Gingold said. Many Soviets bought goods to sell back home.

"Their planes were barely making it off the runway" at the airport because they were so crammed with stuff, said Hume, the 1990 Games organizer.

Before waving goodbye, two Soviet men who stayed with Dennis Cziske's family in Shoreline made an unnerving confession: They were KGB agents.

However, "They left us with a borscht recipe that was delicious," Cziske said.

Measuring success

Some Seattle business people are counting on a World Cup surge this summer. Tourism officials at one point predicted the matches would yield more than $100 million in tax revenue, thanks to increased spending at hotels, restaurants and stores by soccer-crazed visitors.

Yet the officials recently reduced their forecast, citing global unrest and Trump's immigration enforcement push. And the Goodwill Games experience suggests Seattle may want to temper its expectations.

The 1990 event's organizers touted some economic impacts, but Turner lost $44 million, Seattle hotels had vacant rooms, restaurants were disappointed and taxis lost business, according to historical accounts.

In an interview 10 years later, Rice said the event "wasn't an economic boon."

Even so, many involved in 1990 believe the Goodwill Games were worthwhile because they burnished Seattle's brand and made memories.

"I've had people come up to me saying they thought this was the most important thing they'd ever done," said Jewett, the former city attorney.

In a similar vein, the World Cup's success in Seattle could depend on connections made outside Lumen Field. Although Jewett worries that "people are more cynical" these days about sports and politics, there are celebration zones planned in Seattle and across the state where locals and guests will together be able to watch the soccer matches on big screens.

Might the spirit of the 1990 Games reemerge? Lucas, who hosted Valentina back then, put it this way: "I think Seattle people will welcome the visitors.

Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.