Unforgettable Announcement that Shook the World

More than a decade has passed since the end of the Cold War. However, let us recall some of the main controversies of that period. One should recall them in order to understand how politics can be mixed up with sport and influence the life of many notable sportsmen. In 1984 in the height of the cold war, the soviet block decided (which comprised several socialist countries in Eastern Europe) decided to boycott Olympic Games held in Los Angeles. The statement of the Soviet Union came several weeks before the opening ceremony. Right from the start there were some suspicions that other East European countries would do the same and as the story unfolded these suspicions materialized.  Only one East European country –Romania participated in this event, another ex-Soviet satellite – Cuba also joined the boycott.

Official Soviet representatives cited commercialization of the Games as well as security concerns for their athletes as the real reasons for not taking part in Olympic Games. However, in view of many analysts this decision of the Soviet block was taken in retaliation for the boycotting of Olympic Games in Moscow in 1980 by Western countries.   In 1980 the USA led the boycott of the Olympic Games held in Moscow in protest to the invasion of the Afghanistan by Soviet troops in 1979. I wrote term paper on this topic in 1986 and mentioned this reason in it. (It was impossible to order term paper outline those days). When I was preparing information for a term paper I emphasized that only few people believed in official explanations of the USSR and White House claimed that it was a political act. Also many officials claimed that they had taken all necessary security measures to ensure the safety of all athletes participating in the Games. In spite of the fact that the record number of athletes-140 participated in the Games, the quality of the competitions did suffer; as the boycotting nations took 58% of all gold medals in the summer Olympic Games of 1976 (the only Olympic Games in ten years where athletes from Soviet block competed against the sportsmen of Western Countries).

However, in spite of the success of the Games (The Games became profitable without financial support of the Government (http://www.iep.utm.edu), they had to rely on sponsors and facilities) the boycott raised questions about the role of sport in the politics of the Government. Certainly Olympic Games of 1984 had not been the first instance when sport was being used in order to achieve some political gains. Olympic Games of 1976, and 1980 were also politicized as well as the Games in Mexico and Munich though in lesser degree, than Olympic Games at the beginning of the 1980s.  Strangely enough, even with the end of the Cold War politics is sometimes mixed up with sport. For example, the Peking bid for the staging of Olympic Games in 2000, was refused partly for political reasons. When finally International Olympic Committee announced that Beijing would hold Olympic Games of 2008, the world opinion on this issue was divided as well. Many opponents of the regime in China (such as Taiwan officials and Tibetan exiles) cited political reasons in their criticism. They were joined by numerous European human rights groups as well as several official representatives some of them even express the concern that the Games would be used as the propagandist tool as it had been used by Nazi regime in 1936 and Soviet in 1980).