Shortly after midnight on 10 September 1972, a not insignificant cold war skirmish began in a sports hall in Munich. No American basketball team had ever lost an Olympic match; winning a gold medal had become a rite of passage for any six-foot-something college kid selected to represent the stars and stripes during a leap year. Gold, girls, NBA greenbacks – that was the time-honoured route. But in this particularly witching hour the Americans, the youngest squad ever to represent the US in Olympic competition, not only faced a USSR team led by the alchemic Sergei Belov, a future hall of famer, but – to their minds – a governing body, Fiba, that had becoming sick of them winning.

The Soviets wore red, the US team box-fresh white. Little else was pure that night. “These were the two strongest countries in the world fighting for supremacy and basketball was ours,” remembers the US guard Doug Collins, now head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers. “We were the kings. And there was no doubt we wanted to make sure a message was sent.” But it was the USSR that started with the greater intent; imposing their steady, mechanical game to creep to a 26-21 half-time lead. Five points soon became 10, and the Americans’ 63-0 unbeaten record at Olympics was sliding away.

But with six minutes remaining, the Americans began, finally, to fast-press and hustle, and so began a Hollywood fightback that could have been soundtracked by John Williams. Down the gap came – unevenly but surely – until, with less than 10 seconds remaining, the Soviets led by just one point, 49-48, although they had possession.

But the US players kept pressing, hands slapping at air or ball, desperate for the steal that finally came when Kevin Joyce’s hand deflected a Soviet pass. The ball squirmed loose, Collins collected and drove to the basket before being shunted by a red jersey. “He got into a position to flip me so I knew I was take a nasty fall,” said Collins. “I hit my head on the basket and was knocked out for a while. [The US] coach [Hank] Iba said: ‘If Doug can walk he’s shouting these free throws.’ It was like someone sending a bolt of electricity through me.”

There were three seconds left on the clock. Collins needed to make one free throw to tie and two to put the US ahead. He sunk them both. The American supporters in the stands jumped joyously, repeatedly, almost victoriously. The comeback looked complete.

It wasn’t. Not by a long chalk.

The Soviets, who had tried to take a time-out in between Collins’ free throws – a ploy the Americans maintain to this day was not allowed – restarted and, with their officials agitating on the sidelines, were finally awarded a time-out with one second remaining. Again the game appeared over. But then Dr William Jones, the British secretary of Fiba, intervened – something the US team maintain he had no authority to do – and ordered the clock to be reset to 0:03 and the game restarted. Play resumed, the buzzer sounded as a Soviet long pass went awol, and again the Americans jumped and whooped and hollered.

They believed they had won their seventh straight Olympic title. But as the clock was in the process of being reset when play resumed, the floor had to be cleared again and the three seconds reinstated. The Americans, frustrated at the farce, considered pulling out. “People say, ‘Why didn’t you leave?’” says Collins. “We were told that if left we would forfeit so we were pushed out on the court.”

Finally the game got under way again. But the Americans, their emotions meleed by everything that had gone on and fearful of conceding a technical foul, had no pressure on Ivan Edeshko on the inbound line. His Hail Mary pass was caught by Alexander Belov, who brushed off Jim Forbes and Joyce and sunk a lay-up before running back to his team-mates, arms aloft like a track athlete who has just crossed the finishing line, before starting the mother of all bundles.

This time the result was final, despite the best efforts of the Americans, who quickly appealed. Unfortunately, the jury was loaded: of the five people on it, three were from Communist countries. The representatives from Cuba, Poland and the USSR all voted Soviet, and the US appeal was rejected 3-2.

The Americans were convinced they had been stiffed. “In my mind, they decided they were going to cheat us out of this game or give these guys the chance to cheat us out of the game,” says Mike Bantom. The US captain that night, Ken Davis, is even blunter. “William Jones felt it was stifling international basketball for the Americans to keep winning,” he says. “And supposedly he made the statement that if he ever had the chance then he would maybe affect the outcome and obviously he saw his chance and that’s what happened.”

The US team now had a choice: suck up their frustrations and accept silver, or storm off in the mother of all funks. They chose the latter, and for the first time in Olympic history, a spot on the podium was left deserted; a set of medals unclaimed.

Nearly 40 years on, those medals remain in a Swiss vault. And Davis has taken steps to ensure they will stay there in perpetuity. Article IX of his will states: I devise and bequeath at my death that my wife, Rita, and children Jill and Bryan never accept a silver medal from the 1972 Games in West Germany. His reasoning? “You never know what’s going to happen after you die,” he says. “Someone could get hold of it. Maybe not my children but my grandchildren or great-grandchildren and to me it’s not mine. I don’t want it. I don’t deserve it. And I want nothing to do with it.”

With distance, the US’s first-ever Olympics basketball defeat isn’t perhaps as shocking as it appeared at the time. Just three of their squad had international experience before the Olympics, and they had played just 12 exhibition games together, while the USSR squad had racked up almost 400 matches. They were older, better oiled, battle-hardened. But that is of little comfort to Davis and his team-mates, who will take the anger and frustration of that mad night in Munich – if not their shiny silver medals – with them to the grave.

What happened next

The United States team’s silver medals remain unclaimed, sat in a vault in Lusanne, Switzerland. Kenny Davis has it in his will that his wife and children are never to be awarded those medals.

Alexander Belov, the Soviet player who scored the winning basket, died just six years later at the age of 26. Sergei Belov later became recognised as the greatest European player of all time and was the first international player to be elected into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

What the winners said

“The American team was offended, and it wasn’t right. It was the cold war. Americans, out of their own natural pride and love of country, didn’t want to lose and admit loss. They didn’t want to lose in anything, especially basketball” – Ivan Edeshko, the player who threw the game-winning pass for the Soviets.

What the losers said

“If we had gotten beat, I would be proud to display my silver medal. But, we didn’t get beat, we got cheated” – Mike Bantom.

What the Guardian said: 11 September 1972

Reactions were heated after an appeal jury of the International Basketball Federation awarded the Russians the gold medal after their disputed victory over the United States in the basketball final. The American team spokesman Kenny Davis called it a “stunning blow” and said players had voted not to accept the silver medal.

“We do not feel like accepting the silver medal because we feel we are worth the gold,” said Bill Summers, chairman of the US Olympic Basketball Committee and manager of the team.

The appeals jury studied television film of the end of the game when the Americans thought they had just snatched victory only to find that officials had added an extra three seconds to the game, which allowed the Russians to rally and win 51-50.

It was the first time the Americans had ever lost an Olympic Games basketball match. There was a heated argument between Herbert Mols, assistant manager of the United States squad, and Ferenc Hepp, the Hungarian president of the appeals committee, at a press conference afterwards.

Mols said the match had been dominated for 39 minutes and 57 seconds by the Soviet Union. “But we have not heard of any game played for 40 minutes and three seconds,” he said. He asked under what rule the three seconds had been added.

Hepp explained that the time needed to react to the time left to play when the clock stopped was one second. Hans Tenschert, the scorer of the match and one of the three men at the judge’s table, said that when the referee stopped the match there was one second to play. The referee had consulted the judges’ table and no one had said three seconds had to be played: there was only a signal.

“Only a technical delegate at the table could cancel out this signal of three seconds which came from Dr William Jones, the secretary-general of the International Basketball Federation. But the delegate kept silent and the referee had, therefore, no choice but to play three seconds,” Tenschert said.