Athletistic / Others. On December 8, 2023, the Executive Committee of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced the decision to allow athletes from Russia and Belarus to participate in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris (France). However, to do so, athletes from these countries must accept neutral status, qualify for the Games and not support the CBO. After such barriers, very few of our compatriots will be able to go to the 2024 Olympic Games, and for many, this trip will be almost a betrayal of the Fatherland.

Over the past month, calls for a boycott have been heard repeatedly from various athletes. It appears that Russian President Vladimir Putin has dotted the i’s, declaring during his “Direct Line to the President” that everyone is free to decide for themselves whether they are ready to meet the IOC’s demands in order to to participate in the Olympic Games. However, the question of a boycott remains unresolved.

In the history of world sports, there have been many examples of boycotts of various sporting events. But the most famous examples are the two Summer Olympics that took place in the 1980s. Initially, the Western coalition countries led by the United States did not come to Moscow for the Games. 1980. In response to this, the Warsaw Pact countries organized an organized boycott of the 1984 Olympic Games, which took place in Los Angeles.

Photo source: teamusa.org

The Soviet team’s refusal to participate in the Los Angeles Games is now generally considered a strategic error by the leaders of the USSR. This decision was made by the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Konstantin Chernenko, who died shortly after. Then hundreds of Soviet athletes were deprived of the opportunity to participate in the Olympic Games. In fact, an entire generation of our athletes suffered.

The well-known slogan “Sport is beyond politics” has not worked for a long time. Politicians frequently and strongly intervene in sport. This happened on the eve of the 1984 Olympic Games, when the geopolitical situation in the world was extremely tense. In 1980, Ronald Reagan became president of the United States, and even during his election campaign he called the USSR an “evil empire.” Against the backdrop of the war in Afghanistan, Soviet athletes were under constant pressure at all major international competitions. True, no one had yet thought about coining the term “threat to competition security” and the suspension of athletes from different countries because of this.

An important link in the chain that led the Soviet authorities to the decision to boycott was the refusal of the United States to comply with IOC rules and automatically issue a visa to any member of the Soviet delegation. The Americans demanded that they be provided with a detailed file on each athlete, coach and staff member. The United States said it wanted to prevent “KGB agents” from entering their country. Then, after lengthy negotiations, the parties managed to reach general concessions. But the American authorities have once again added fuel to the fire. They banned the acceptance of all charters with Soviet athletes at the Los Angeles airport and also did not allow the Georgian motorboat, which at that time was the floating base of the national team of the USSR, to enter the port of the Californian city.

Photo source: open source photo

Political provocations in Los Angeles were guaranteed. This will be confirmed by the famous story of gymnast Nadia Comenech from Romania. As payment for escaping to the United States, he was offered to complete the relay race and light the Olympic flame. This event could become not only an international scandal, but also a violation of Olympic traditions. Even the IOC opposed Comanech’s candidacy as final torchbearer, which delayed her departure for the United States for several years. But propaganda already knew its stuff and was working on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

In general, the atmosphere around the 1984 Olympics was extremely difficult. It wasn’t just Soviet athletes who were having problems. Shortly before the start of the Games, two blocks from the Olympic Village, a criminal drove his car onto the sidewalk and crashed into a group of passers-by. As a result, one person died and 54 were injured.

After that, the government of the USSR demanded from its American colleagues security guarantees for Olympians from the countries of the socialist camp. But as expected, such guarantees were never provided to them. However, all this did not force the Soviet leadership to declare a boycott of the 1984 Games. Until the beginning of spring 1984, all national teams of the USSR had a plan for training their athletes on hand, focused on a trip to Los Angeles.

There was another ideological moment in the history of the boycott. The Los Angeles Olympics were the first to be entirely private. It is officially believed that the US government did not allocate public money for the preparation and holding of the Games (which is hardly true). In this regard, the organizers of the 1984 Olympics tried to make money on everything. One example was the opportunity to participate in the Olympic torch relay. This right was granted “only” for $3,000 per kilometer. For a socialist state, like the USSR, this seemed doubly crazy.

In my opinion, the main factor in the boycott was the unwillingness of the USSR leadership to lose to the United States, even in sports. In the context of the Cold War, parties tried in every possible way to “annoy” each other, as well as to distance themselves from someone else’s background. And at the 1984 Olympics, the hosts’ advantage would have been noticeable. To do this, they used not only the development of their athletes, but also various tricks. For example, the Americans canceled all weeks of pre-Olympic competitions to allow their athletes to be in more favorable conditions. The USSR’s chances of winning the unofficial competition for team medals were then close to zero, and this was in no way included in the plans of the country’s leadership.

The decision to ban the participation of Soviet athletes in the Olympic Games in Los Angeles was made on May 5 by the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee. The final refusal was made official during the plenum of the USSR NOC, which took place on May 8. At that time, IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch, considered a close comrade of a number of Soviet politicians, tried by all means to avoid such a development of events. In April, at his request, a member of the IOC executive committee, Mexican Mario Vazquez Ranya, visited Moscow, and then Samaranch himself visited the Union capital. At a meeting with Samaranch, then Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Nikolai Talyzin announced the final verdict on the USSR’s refusal to participate in the Olympic Games in California. As a result, the USSR used its political weight and forced 14 other countries from the socialist camp to join the boycott.

Photo source: IOC

It was possible and necessary to prevent a boycott of the 1984 Olympic Games. How could we prevent a similar move by Western countries in 1980, before the Moscow Games? Athletes, living, like everyone else, in a bipolar world, constantly performed in the “den of the enemy.” However, the Olympic Games then had an even more sacred meaning than today and constituted a weapon in the hands of politicians. These are the politicians who have ruined the careers of hundreds of athletes. But to claim that the reasons for refusing to participate in the 1984 Olympic Games were purely political would be a lie. At that time, America did a lot to ensure that the USSR had every reason to boycott.

Drawing an analogy with the current situation is extremely difficult and makes no sense. New times require new solutions. From now on, it’s not us who refuse to go to the Olympic Games, but the people who refuse to see us there. But one thing can be said with 100% certainty: political interference in sports does not lead to anything good. This is demonstrated by history, is confirmed today and will be reflected in the future.

Nikita Serbakov, Athletistic


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