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Tune in to any news program these days and you are likely to hear about the call to boycott the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, or even the entire games. Citizens of several countries, including the United States, have demonstrated against the actions of the Chinese against the people of Tibet, calling for their governments to boycott. Most recently, Hillary Clinton echoed the sentiments of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other leading democrats, calling for President Bush to skip the opening ceremonies in protest of China's human rights record. “At this time, and in light of recent events, I believe President Bush should not plan on attending the opening ceremonies in Beijing, absent major changes by the Chinese government," the senator said. And many people across this country and others expressed similar opinions, hoping to pressure the Chinese into putting a stop to the violence in Tibet. But is boycotting an Olympic games, or even just the opening ceremony, the right way to go about
it? Does it really have any impact on the stated objective of the boycott? Who suffers more, the host country or the athletes who miss their opportunity to participate? We do have two fairly recent examples of Olympic boycotts to learn from, but first we should review exactly why the Games make a prime target for political agendas.
Beginning with the advent of television, the Olympic games changed from being a fairly obscure sporting event attended by a handful of countries, receiving only newspaper coverage, into a sports and media extravaganza as more and more countries participated, generating a wealth of national pride among citizens watching their athletes compete against the world's best. It didn't take long for advertisers to take notice, creating one of the most popular and most watched events around the world. The host country stands to make in the hundreds of millions of dollars from the games. Therefore, it becomes a prime target for any country with an issue against the host country to call for a boycott, pressuring the host country into changing their policies, or risk losing all those millions. But does it work? In 1980, the United States, led by President Jimmy Carter, called on its Olympic athletes to boycott the Moscow Games in a protest over the Soviet Union's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. And, while it did result in s
everal U.S. allies joining the boycott and severely affecting many of the events in the 1980 games, did it have any long-term affect on the Soviet Union? They didn't rush to recall their troops from Afghanistan. In fact, Soviet troops remained there until 1987.
In the ensuing Olympic Games the Soviets and 13 other Eastern Bloc countries boycotted the Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 1984, citing a non-communist atmosphere and an anti-Soviet hysteria being whipped up in the United States. Of course, everyone knew it was simply payback for the U.S.-led boycott of the Moscow games four years earlier. But did this boycott have any success in changing the anti-Soviet sentiment in the U.S.? Not likely, as the '84 games went on to become the first Olympic Games to make a profit since 1932. And the entire Olympic event was one of, if not the most, successful games ever to that point. And another point to consider in calling for a boycott is that it is the IOC (International Olympic Committee), along with each country's Olympic committee, which decides whether or not to send their athletes to an event, not a country's government. note: In 1980, President Carter threatened to revoke the passport of any athlete who attended the Moscow games, using the law to enforce the
boycott. Therefore, in my opinion, history has proven that a worldwide audience has a bigger voice than even the most powerful nations, and the Olympic Games have simply gotten too big and popular to be affected by a political boycott.
There is an even more important issue at stake here as well. The Olympic Games are about the athletes alone, not the host country or the participating countries, or even the huge advertising companies that flood millions of dollars into the games and the communities. The games are the culmination of many years of dedication on the part of the athletes to compete against the very best in the world in their respective sports, and to be judged by and against the best. It is a time when the people of hundreds of nations come together, putting aside political differences, cultural differences and socio-economic differences to not only compete against the best, but to bond as athletes, and in many cases to make lifelong friendships that otherwise would never come into being. It would do a great disservice to these athletes to deny them, on the basis of political agenda (even a deserving agenda such as human rights) the very pinnacle of success they have worked their entire lives to achieve.
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