1976 Summer Olympics the exclusive Ritz-Carlton hotel in a vain attempt to end the "delays". Ultimately Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa made some sort of secret deal to buy off Desjardins, which finally allowed work to proceed. Taillibert wrote in "Notre Cher Stade Olympique" "If the Olympic Games took place, it was thanks to Dede Desjardins. What irony!" The opening ceremony of the 1976 Summer Olympic Games was held on Saturday, July 17, 1976, at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Quebec in front of an audience of some 73,000 in the stadium, and an estimated half billion watching on television. The ceremony marked the
Summer Olympic Games the 2020 Summer Olympics, when it will become the first city outside the Western world to have hosted the Summer Olympics more than once, having already hosted the Games in 1964. The other countries that have hosted the Summer Olympics are Belgium, Brazil, China, Canada, Finland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Soviet Union, and Sweden; each of these countries has hosted the Summer Games on just one occasion. Asia has hosted the Summer Olympics three times, in Tokyo, Japan (1964), Seoul, South Korea (1988), and Beijing, China (2008); Asia will host the Games for a fourth time in 2020