Boycotting The Olympics [EXCLUSIVE]
Full boycotts have happened a handful of times for a variety of reasons. Notable examples include the 1976 games, when more than two dozen African nations boycotted the Montreal Olympics after the IOC refused to ban New Zealand, whose rugby team had ignored an international sporting embargo to tour apartheid South Africa. Four years later, the United States led a boycott of the Moscow Olympics to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviet Union retaliated in 1984, boycotting the Los Angeles Olympics. The last full boycott was in 1988, when North Korea and its allies skipped the Seoul Olympics.
Boycotting the Olympics
In early 1980, the movement toward either boycotting the games altogether or moving them out of the Soviet Union gained momentum. Calls for boycotts of Olympic events were not uncommon; just four years prior, most of the nations of Sub-Saharan Africa boycotted the Summer Games in Montreal to protest the attendance of New Zealand after the latter sent its rugby team to play against the team from apartheid South Africa. In 1956, several Western European governments boycotted the games in Melbourne over the Soviet invasion of Hungary that year. Although the Olympic ideal was to place sport above politics, in reality there were often political goals and messages promoted through the games.
Western governments first considered the idea of boycotting the Moscow Olympics in response to the situation in Afghanistan at the December 20, 1979 meeting of NATO representatives, although at that time, not many of the governments were interested in the proposal. The idea gained popularity, however, when Russian dissident Andrei Sakharov called for a boycott in early January. On January 14, 1980, the Carter Administration joined Sakharov by setting a deadline by which the Soviet Union must pull out of Afghanistan or face consequences including an international boycott of the games. When the deadline passed a month later without any change to the situation in Central Asia, Carter pushed U.S. allies to pull their Olympic teams from the upcoming games.
Mahoney was one of a number of Catholic leaders supporting a boycott. New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia, New York governor Al Smith, and Massachusetts governor James Curley also opposed sending a team to Berlin. The Catholic journal The Commonweal (November 8, 1935) advised boycotting an Olympics that would set the seal of approval on radically anti-Christian Nazi doctrines.
A politically neutral assessment of the objectives of the boycotting nations and/or their National Olympic Committees shows that international disputes that do not involve sports are rarely injected with success into the politics of the Olympic Games. A cost-benefit analysis of participating versus not participating in the games leads to the inexorable conclusion that it is virtually always better for a nation to participate.
I didn't know what they were going to talk about, except something about the Olympics. They told us about the terrible things that were going on in Germany and the Nazi regime. And it was a shock to me and Norman. They suggested that it might be a good idea for us not to go to the Olympics because of all these problems, and to sort of register our objections and sort of boycotting the Olympics. And we were quite taken aback about that thought. They tried to explain to us that we would never regret it if we did take that action to boycott the Olympics. And that meeting really turned us around, because we were horrified at the terrible things that were going on in Germany. Both Cahners and I decided that we would boycott the Olympics. We just felt it was the right thing to do.
The notion of boycotting an Olympics dates back to 1956, when eight countries withdrew from competing at the 1956 Melbourne Games. Egypt, Iraq, Cambodia and Lebanon withdrew because of the Suez Crisis, while Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland boycotted the Games because of the Soviet Union's invasion of Hungary. China also withdrew from that Olympics because Taiwan was set to compete.
A total of 66 countries did not attend the Moscow Olympics in 1980. The then Soviet Union and 17 other countries responded by boycotting the 1984 Los Angeles Games. North Korea and Cuba boycotted the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
Boycotting the Olympics is a bold move, especially considering that it is a worldwide event that has taken place since 1896. This year, many will be boycotting the Paralympics and Winter Olympics, which will have skating, skiing, snowboarding and much more.
I agree this is a Great Article that brings up important topics to be discussed. The allegations are so very disturbing and Silence is not an option! Would the US, its allies and all good people be better off instead of boycotting the Olympics (and making the athletes pay) show their support for the oppressed by participating and doing some act in a unified manner?Great article by a great kid! ?
Judge Jeremiah Mahoney, president of the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), led efforts to boycott the 1936 Olympics, pointing out that Germany had broken Olympic rules forbidding discrimination based on race and religion. New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia, New York governor Al Smith, and Massachusetts governor James Curley also opposed sending a team to Berlin. The Catholic journal The Commonweal (November 8, 1935) advised boycotting an Olympics that would set the seal of approval on radically anti-Christian Nazi doctrines.
Amid the growing calls for boycotting of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics due to "gross violations of human rights" by the Chinese government, former US President Donald Trump said that he does not agree with it and said the US should go, compete and win the game.
Former President Trump said that he does not agree with boycotting the Beijing Olympics in 2022 after activists have argued the U.S. should not participate in the games due to China's reported human rights abuses, The Hill reported.Various activists in the United States have argued that America should not participate in the games due to China's reported human rights abuses.