User:Jnestorius/1980 Olympic boycott

< 1980 Olympic boycott

Sports Illustrated

 * THE OLYMPIC ULTIMATUM "Jan. 4 television speech ... Carter said ... the U.S. might withdraw ... Last week [13-20 Jan] ... flat-out ultimatum ... by Feb. 20, the U.S. would not compete in Moscow... The scenario seemingly envisioned by the White House would include a mass exodus from the 1980 Olympics by so many countries that the IOC would be forced to scuttle the Games ... if the U.S.S.R. takes military action in Yugoslavia, the Games might indeed have to be canceled or postponed, two of Carter's alternatives. Given the mind-boggling logistics involved, the President's third option, that the Olympics be moved to a new site, is less promising, but the Administration has made it known it is prepared to spend as much as $500 million to subsidize relocated Games. If the IOC declined to go along, the President would be willing to underwrite a counter-Olympics, leaving the real Games, to the U.S.S.R.'s everlasting humiliation, largely to Communist-bloc countries. ... So far the only countries to announce that they plan to boycott are Saudi Arabia and the neighboring states of Qatar and Djibouti, which scarcely amounts to a mass movement. Israel and Egypt have said they would favor relocation of the Games, and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Canadian Prime Minister Joe Clark have strongly expressed the same opinion. Public reaction in much of Western Europe to a boycott has been lukewarm ... There is also some question about what U.S. Olympic officials and athletes might do. The USOC brass declined to commit themselves on the President's ultimatum ... the rising tide of sentiment among the American public in favor of a boycott has hastened the making of decisions before it might otherwise have been necessary ... It may or may not be an accident that the Feb. 20 deadline falls during the 13-day Winter Olympics in Lake Placid"
 * THE DECISION: NO GO ON MOSCOW report on US NOC vote; athletes wanted to go, officials didn't, threats from govt. "The final count in the complicated weighted voting system used by the USOC was 1,604 in favor of the boycott, 797 opposed, with two abstentions."
 * MASTERY AND MYSTERY Bill Rodgers chose to go the Boston Marathon rather than the Olympic Trial marathon once the boycott was decided.
 * THE JOYLESS GAMES "The apparent failure of his campaign to move, postpone or cancel the Olympics is a partial defeat for Carter—as is the quiet death of his scheme for an alternative games. ... committees in at least 10 countries went so far as to defy the entreaties of their governments to join the boycott"
 * Trying Hard to Go Nowhere US Olympic Trials track and field
 * Detour on the High Road "Here, in pictures and words, we offer an appreciation of four Americans, symbolic of all who might have been Olympians, and the tortuous path to the Games a fifth has taken"
 * It's harder to accept the boycott when you know it's really you who would be going to Moscow Anthony Sandoval
 * I believe there might have been other ways to handle it...but I guess President Carter couldn't think of any. It was just fated Johnny Bumphus
 * I could be over the hill in 1984. Tracy Caulkins
 * If I felt I was the only Westerner going it might change my mind Bill Rea competed for Austria in the long jump
 * I said to the coach, 'Give 'em hell.' I'm done. I'm retired Peter Schnugg 'On May 16, 1980, John H. Pratt, the District Judge for the District of Columbia, handed down a 23-page decision denying 25 athletes an injunction against the U.S. Olympic Committee's decision not to send a team to the Moscow Games. "The courts have correctly recognized that many of life's disappointments, even major ones, do not enjoy constitutional protection," wrote Pratt. "This is one such instance."'
 * Meanwhile in Moscow... "One rumor had no teams at all showing up for the field-hockey competition, which, like the equestrian events, is being boycotted for lack of competition by some nations. Archery and basketball medals mean little when the U.S. stays home, and the same holds for judo without Japan."
 * Only the Bears Were Bullish on opening ceremony etc
 * voices-from-the-village VOICES FROM THE VILLAGE US athletes competing for other countries. Puerto Rico went. 4 Australian federations went
 * THE OLYMPICS: FEAST OR FAMINE TV coverage less in boycotting nations; NBC hugely reduced coverage despite rights payment.
 * ALL THAT GLITTER WAS NOT GOLD U.S. Long Course Swimming Championships "Technically, the meet was a combination of the national championships originally scheduled for mid-August and the Olympic Trials originally scheduled for mid-June. When the boycott took effect, these two meets were merged and switched to the week immediately following the swimming competition in Moscow. The result was a mock Olympics. ... Last week three more lines were added to the top of the scoreboard to accommodate the times of Moscow's gold, silver and bronze medalists, three ever-present ghosts in the water at Irvine. As the swimmers headed into each turn, the upcoming split of the gold medalist would appear at the top of the scoreboard as a standard to be compared with the split that would flash below when an American swimmer touched the wall. ... And then there was the ongoing count of Olympic medals, a bogus exercise in the eyes of most of the swimmers. "
 * MINI-REBELLION IN ROAD RACING "pressure is building for openly awarding prize money in road racing ... leading road racers often compete in the Olympics and are subject, with track and field athletes, to the archaic amateur rules imposed by the IAAF, the world governing body of the sport. ... The athletes' ultimate weapon is the possibility that many of them may decide to chuck their international eligibility. Thanks partly to disillusionment caused by the Olympic boycott, U.S. road racers appear determined to take greater control of their own fate."
 * MINI-REBELLION IN ROAD RACING "pressure is building for openly awarding prize money in road racing ... leading road racers often compete in the Olympics and are subject, with track and field athletes, to the archaic amateur rules imposed by the IAAF, the world governing body of the sport. ... The athletes' ultimate weapon is the possibility that many of them may decide to chuck their international eligibility. Thanks partly to disillusionment caused by the Olympic boycott, U.S. road racers appear determined to take greater control of their own fate."

US official
Government Documents Relating to the 1980 Olympic Games Boycott (PDF) by RL Morrison - ‎1982 (also includes summary and timeline of the boycott)


 * DeFrantz v. United States Olympic Com., 492 F. Supp. 1181 (D.D.C. 1980)
 * Declassified Documents Shed Light on 1980 Moscow Olympics Boycott, FEBRUARY 14, 2014 by Lauren Harper
 * The Olympic Boycott, 1980 US Dept of State
 * 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.


 * 1980 USOC report
 * pt 1 winter; President Robert Kane's address (pp.14-15):
 * the 461 athletes who earned places on the 1980 Olympic Summer Team. ... No record of the United States Olympic Committee history for the last four years would be complete without mention of the special recognition accorded members of the 1980 Summer Olympic Team in Washington, D. C, July 25-30. One of the highlights of this Honors Program was the presentation of Congressional gold medals by the officers of the Olympic Committee on the steps of the Capitol. On this day too, the President of the United States praised the achievements of the athletes for having been chosen for the Team and expressed his thanks for the sacrifice they were asked to make. The program concluded with a buffet dinner on the lawn of the White House and an evening of entertainment at the Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts. It was a memorable occasion. Notwithstanding the wrenching hurt of not taking part in the Summer Games, I do believe the Olympic movement in this country has been left with a splendid legacy.


 * pt2 summer
 * pp.235-261 team roster
 * pp.262-264 "OLYMPIC HONORS PROGRAM" Washington DC July 26-30, team members received gold-plated Congressional medals (except swimmers, competing in Nationals, who were hosted August 4-6)


 * H.R. 7482 / S.2747 "A bill to authorize the President of the United States to present on behalf of Congress a specially struck gold-plated medal to the United States Summer Olympic Team of 1980." (223 cosponsors)
 * LawI.US says Directs the Secretary of the Treasury to cause to be stricken 650 such medals with suitable emblems and the inscription “First in Patriotism.”  but govtrack.us text does not mention inscription:
 * (a) the President of the United States is authorized to present a gold-plated medal of appropriate design, on behalf of the Congress, to those athletes selected through the Olympic trial process to represent the United States in the summer Olympics of 1980, in recognition of their outstanding athletic achievements and of their determination in the pursuit of excellence. For such purpose, the Secretary of the Treasury IS authorized and directed to cause to be stricken six hundred and fifty gold-plated medals with suitable emblems, devices, and inscriptions to be determined by the Secretary of the Treasury.
 * (b) The medals provided for in this Act are national medals for the purpose of section 3551 of the Revised Statutes (31 U.S.C. 368).
 * (c) Funds to carry out the provisions of this Act, which shall not exceed $50,000, shall be available from amounts currently appropriated for the operation of the Bureau of the Mint. Such funds shall be fully reimbursed from funds appropriated under the Amateur Sports Act of 1978.


 * "Because of the high volume of medals needed, Congress authorized the U.S. Mint to forge gold-plated medals in lieu of standard solid gold medals"

The New York Times:

 * 1980 Olympics Face Threat of a Boycott 1978 Asian Games excluded Israel
 * Boycott Aura Persists In U.S.-Soviet Track USTAF head coach Harmon Brown "Of course I think American athletes and American amateur sportsmen were very disappointed by having several years of preparations frustrated by not being able to compete in the Olympic Games. But I think it must be kept in mind that the decision of the government was supported by a good majority of the American public. The athletic community is heavily supported by the American public, so that although we don't always agree with the decisions we have to go along with the principle that the majority does rule."
 * INFLUENCE OF UNITED STATES ON OLYMPICS IS SLIPPING boycott accelerated decline of US influence in IOC
 * NBC IN OLYMPIC PACT WITH A BOYCOTT CUSHION 1986 NBC-IOC TV deal "Network executives also said they believed the coverage of the 1988 Games would be profitable, unlike the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, during which NBC took a $32 million loss because of a Washington-led boycott over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan ... Under the new contract, a letter of credit from the Korean Exchange Bank will be provided as insurance on rights payments and production and equipment expenses that might be lost if the network has to curtail or cancel its coverage because of a boycott or any other factor that might diminish the games, including natural or technical failures"

Academic
THE MELBOURNE PRESS AND THE 1980 MOSCOW OLYMPIC BOYCOTT CONTROVERSY
 * In order to investigate some of the factors contributing to this trend, it is interesting to consider the general consensus of public opinion as reflected by some of the early opinion polls. The first polls were published in February by The Herald and The National Times on the two questions "Should Australia boycott the Moscow Games?" and "should Australia continue to trade with the Soviet Union?"22 Both these polls indicated clearly that the majority surveyed were not necessarily convinced that Australia should boycott the Moscow Games and that the federal government had, as The National Times suggested "seriously miscalculated by committing itself to the boycott."23 Given such an adverse political climate, it is difficult to understand why the federal government pursued the Olympic boycott issue so actively, and why the press seems to have supported their goal so faithfully

Other
May 24 deadline was lifted by IOC after the fact; "Invitations ultimately left open until the opening of the Games" Rolf Friedemann Pauls, German NATO ambassador, first suggested boycott, picked up by Carter. "The Soviet people never told why the United States and other countries were boycotting, so they were mystified, not motivated to protest."
 * Congressional Medals Awarded to 1980 Olympians Officially Honored USATF 2007: "because of this technical difference, the official listing of Gold Medal recipients maintained by the Clerk of the House of Representatives did not carry the ones awarded to the 1980 Team even though Congress intended that they be fully-recognized Congressional Gold Medals"
 * US says 65 joined ts boycott, but this is "almost certainly overstated". 68 relevant NOCs:
 * 28 declined invitation (GER, USA, PRC, SAR, )
 * 29 did not respond to invitation by deadline (JPN, NOR)
 * 6 accepted invitation but did not compete (GAB, MTS, NGR, PAN, SUR, VOL)
 * 2 suspended: Iran (revolution? 1982 doc says announced non-competing) and Chinese Taipei (over name, imposed in 1979)
 * 3 joined in June 1980, of which one (MOZ) participated -- possibly deadline waived because of boycott, though QAT and UAE did not compete

Reforms to allow athletes compete under Olympic symbols were "treated with derision by spectator and participant alike"." IOC treated seriously proposals for a permanent home for the Games.

Country
Ireland
 * Ireland women's national field hockey team turned down an invitation to make up numbers in the tournament.