A Brief History of Sports Boycotts

This article originally appeared in the 2022 Summer edition of SwimSwam Magazine. Subscribe here.

After officials in Olympia accused an Athenian pentathlete of bribing opponents in 332 B.C., the city of Athens threatened to boycott the Olympic Games unless the charges – and the hefty fine that accompanied them – were dropped. The dispute was ultimately settled by the Oracle of Delphi herself, who told the Athenians that they would receive no further oracular advice until they paid the fine. There may not be a modern prophet around to settle disagreements today, but unpacking the history of sports boycotts could help offer a glimpse into the future.

THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL SPORTS BOYCOTT (WE COULD FIND)

After Uruguay won its bid to host the first World Cup in 1930, the other bidding nations – Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Spain – refused to make the trip despite Uruguay’s offer to pay for the travel bills of competing countries. Austria, Hungary, Germany, and Switzerland also withdrew due to the three-week boat trip. England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland didn’t participate because of a rift with FIFA, leaving the door open for the United States (playing with a number of English and Scottish players) to record its best result to date with a third-place finish.

SPAIN SKIPS THE NAZI OLYMPICS

Six years later, the first small Olympic boycott took place when the newly elected left-wing government in Spain organized the People’s Olympiad, an alternative to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin also known as the Nazi Olympics. About 6,000 athletes from 49 countries registered, but the People’s Olympiad was ultimately canceled after the Spanish Civil War broke out one day before the event was scheduled to begin. At least 200 athletes remained in Spain and joined workers’ militias defending the Second Spanish Republic against the nationalists.

THREE SEPARATE 1956 OLYMPIC GAMES BOYCOTTS

In 1956, the first widespread Olympic boycott went down, although the eight countries had different reasons for not participating. Less than a month before the opening ceremony in Melbourne, the Soviet Union invaded Hungary to halt the Hungarian Revolution against the Communist regime. In response, the Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland pulled out of the Olympics. Egypt, Iraq, and Lebanon also withdrew because of the Suez Canal Crisis where Britain, Israel, and France invaded Egypt to control the waterway. Meanwhile, the People’s Republic of China boycotted because of Taiwan’s inclusion, an issue that kept them away from the Olympics until the 1980 Winter Games.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF PROTEST

In partnership with the Olympic Human Rights Project, African American athletes threatened to boycott the 1968 Mexico City Olympics as part of the civil rights movement. They ultimately elected to attend as Tommie Smith and John Carlos made their mark on the medal podium with their iconic black power salute. Smith broke the world record, winning the gold medal while Carlos took bronze. However, the 200-meter dashers were booed, kicked out of the Olympic village, and suspended from U.S. track and field in retaliation for the act. Smith and Carlos never received an official apology from the IOC or USOPC, but over 40 years later, they were inducted into the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Hall of Fame for “courageously” standing up for racial equality.

UNIFIED EFFORT PROVES EFFECTIVE

The sporting boycott of South Africa during the apartheid era is considered one of the more effective protests of the past century. At the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, most of the African continent declared a boycott due to New Zealand’s inclusion in the event. Earlier in the year, New Zealand’s national rugby team toured South Africa in defiance of an international sports embargo against the apartheid nation. Led by Tanzania, a group of 28 countries totaling more than 400 athletes participated in the protest. The following year, the embargo was formalized in the Gleneagles Agreement. Although it wasn’t enough to dissuade the British & Irish Lions from touring South Africa in 1980, it likely contributed to the cancellation of their 1986 tour. South Africa had already been excluded from the Olympics since 1964 and removed from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1970. While there were many factors that contributed to the end of apartheid, the sports prohibition raised awareness and encouraged resistance at all levels, making it one of the more effective boycotts of the past century.

THE U.S. AND RUSSIA TRADE JABS

The Cold War brought two prominent Olympic boycotts in the 1980s. First, the U.S. orchestrated the largest protest to date, leading a contingent of more than 60 countries who sat out of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. The year prior, the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan. U.S. President Jimmy Carter sent Muhammad Ali to campaign across Africa to recruit countries to join the boycott, but the boxing star changed his mind on tour after he came under scrutiny for being a White House puppet. Some boycotting countries allowed individuals to compete under the Olympic flag, but American athletes attempting to compete risked losing their passports. A group of American athletes unsuccessfully sued the U.S. Olympic Committee to participate.

Instead, the U.S. hosted the Liberty Bell Classic in Philadelphia, a track and field event that was part of a $10 million Congress-funded project to produce alternative competitions. It began a few days before the Moscow Games opened, but 17 of the 34 U.S. Olympic Trials champions didn’t race in Philadelphia because it clashed with the prestigious Bislett Games in Oslo just the day before. Only 80 countries competed in the 1980 Olympics – the fewest since 1956 – but it’s a stretch to consider the boycott a success. Not only did it do little to end the Soviet-Afghan war, which continued until 1989, but with the U.S. and other powerhouses sitting out, the Soviets broke the record for most gold medals with 80.

Four years later in Los Angeles, the Soviets returned the favor at the 1984 Olympics by convincing 13 allies to boycott the Summer Games in fear of their safety. The Americans similarly took advantage of their rival’s absence, claiming 83 gold medals to snap the Soviets’ recent record. Bryan Fogel, director of the 2017 documentary Icarus, speculated that the Soviets’ real reason for boycotting was their fear of getting caught for their doping program.

CATCHING UP TO THE CURRENT

The next Olympics was more inclusive, with everyone attending the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul except North Korea. Athlete activism took a relative downturn over the next couple decades, but its recent resurgence has been remarkable. College football players showed how much power they command in 2015 when a pair of protests created real change. At Missouri, a boycott led to the firing of the university president while a boycott in Oklahoma managed to shut down a fraternity that had chanted racist insults. Then Colin Kaepernick made waves with his decision to kneel during the national anthem in protest of police brutality during the 2016 season. On the international level, the renaissance of athlete activism has been less pronounced as calls to boycott the 2018 World Cup in Russia and the 2022 World Cup in Qatar both lost steam.

A brief history of sports boycotts provides important context to the current debate around sanctioning Russia for its war on Ukraine. Sure, most of the aforementioned protests were merely symbolic acts that had little impact on global politics. But every once in a while, a group effort can effect change, and the current situation with Vladimir Putin might just be one of those exceptions to the norm. Sports and competition are at the heart of the Russian president’s macho-nationalist persona. Preventing Russia from entering arenas such as the 2022 World Cup and IOC events gives Putin less platforms for propaganda while also undermining his public image of strength.