interesting persepective from a 1980 U.S.Olympic athlete
The decision stunned Dick Buerkle, a U.S. distance runner who had qualified for the 1980 team – and who learned of the boycott when he saw it on the news.
Buerkle, now a high school teacher and coach in suburban Atlanta, says reading about World War II gave him a sense of perspective. “This is not the worst thing that’s ever happened in the world,” he says. “Although at the time when it occurred to me, I thought it was. I just thought it was unjust, unfair, it just was wrong.”
Buerkle accepts that politics is part of the Olympics – “It’s the way they’ve always been,” he says – and believes that the games can be a positive political force, as with a 28-year ban against the apartheid regime in South Africa.
“The Olympics did not change South Africa; it took a lot of forces to do that,” he says. “But they were a force.”
The ban on South Africa from 1964 until 1992 “embarrassed that country, and eventually caused them to open up their playing fields to black and white,” Buerkle says. “It had an impact. The Olympics not letting them compete had an impact.”
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/20/spotlight/
Just a tad hypocritcal, we ban South Africa from participating and we turn around and allow China to host them…my only point is the olympics have always been political this is nothing new. What sickens me is what we allow some countries to get away with and others we ban for 28 years…SIGH
