After the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, U.S. President Jimmy Carter issued an ultimatum stating that the United States would boycott the Moscow games of 1980 if Soviet troops did not withdraw by February of that year. When Soviet troops remained, the boycott was joined by Japan, West Germany, Canada, China and sixty others. The United Kingdom, France and Greece were sympathetic to the boycott but allowed their athletes to participate of their own volition if they so wished. Italy's government also supported the boycott. Those of its athletes who were members of the military corps did not compete.

In 1984, the U.S.S.R. responded by refusing to take part in the Los Angeles games, citing "chauvinistic sentiments and an anti-Soviet hysteria being whipped up in the United States". The U.S.S.R. was joined by thirteen of its allies, while post-revolution Iran also joined, making it the only nation to boycott both the 1980 and 1984 games.

In any gathering of international delegations, sporting or otherwise, political tensions are bound to run high. My favorite story comes from the 1956 Melbourne Olympics in which Hungary and the Soviet Union engaged in an impassioned water polo match as Soviet tanks rumbled into Budapest. The water was, the story goes, tinged red at the match's end. Melbourne concomitantly saw the first-ever Olympic boycotts; the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland refused to attend because of the events in Hungary, while Cambodia, Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon boycotted owing to the Suez crisis.

For better or for worse the Olympics have become the playing ground of high politics. However it is a high politics that remains highly symbolic. Should any major powers eventually choose to boycott Beijing, it would serve only to showcase their unwillingness and inability to press for real change to China's abominable human rights record.

Copyright (c) 2008 Jackson Kern

Page 2 of 2 :: First | Last :: Prev | 1 2 | Next