Upper Volta at the 1972 Summer Olympics union team shortly before the Olympics. The majority of the 28 countries in the Olympic boycott were African nations. When the country returned to the Olympics, in 1988, they would be known as Burkina Faso. Upper Volta at the 1972 Summer Olympics The Republic of Upper Volta (as Upper Volta) competed at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany. This was the first and only time the country participated under that name at the Olympic Games. However, the first Upper Voltan athletes took part in the Olympics at the 1924 Games as part of the French contingent. André Bicaba
Lake Volta Dam holds back both the White Volta River and the Black Volta River, which formerly converged where the middle of the reservoir now lies, to form the single Volta River. The present Volta River flows from the outlets of the dam's powerhouse and spillways to the Atlantic Ocean in southern Ghana. The main islands within the lake are Dodi, Dwarf, and Kporve. Digya National Park lies on part of the lake's western shore. The lake is formed by the Akosombo Dam, which was originally conceived by the geologist Albert Ernest Kitson in 1915, but whose construction only began in 1961