Résumé : For the first time, the excited states in the extremely neutron-deficient nucleus 180Pb have been observed in an in-beam γ-ray measurement employing the recoil-decay tagging technique. Deduced level energies follow the trend of prolate intruder band level energies derived from heavier lead isotopes and reflect the persistence of magicity of the closed Z=82 proton shell when approaching the proton drip line. © 2011 American Institute of Physics.