Just let the athletes play
published:
Saturday | April 12, 2008
Tym Glaser - FINAL WORD
BACK IN the late '70s or early '80s, some budding Einstein in Australia came up with the tremendous idea of a non-alcoholic beer and called it, presumably after himself, Clayton's.
Now as far as useless inventions go, this one's right up there. Hey, non-alcoholic beer is not beer, it's just a bitter soft drink; just as alcohol-free wine is not really wine, it's just better bottled grape juice.
Anyway, what stuck about Clayton's was its somewhat catchy slogan: "the beer you have when you're not having a beer", which became the catchphrase for everything not quite the real deal.
That word usage was never more appropriate than in 1980 when Australia had a Clayton's boycott of the Moscow Olympic Games.
Four years before, in Montreal, African nations boycotted the Games because of attendee New Zealand's sporting ties with South Africa. In '80, the United States led the snub because of the Soviet's invasion of Afghanistan.
Four years after that, the Soviet Union, and some of its allies, returned the favour and didn't go to the party in Los Angeles.
Back in '80, the Australian government didn't tell its athletes not to go to Moscow but strongly suggested it was not advisable and participation would be frowned upon. Some stayed home, some went and Australia had a Clayton's team at the world's greatest sporting event.
I thought back then how nonsensical and futile the boycott was and that's just grown over time. See how the whole Afghanistan thing has worked out now. Boy, I sure bet your average Afghan goat vendor is thanking Allah nowadays that the US didn't go to the Moscow Games as bombs rock his casbah.
It didn't work out so wonderfully for the primary boycotters either as the dominos which started toppling in that Asian nation led all the way to the horrific events of 9/11 and the current debacles in Iraq and (guess where?) Afghanistan.
The boycotts, all three of them, basically achieved nothing apart from some political bandstanding on a stage which should not be tarnished by politics and the only people that were really hurt were the athletes who didn't get a chance to put four years of blood, sweat and tears to the test on the greatest stage of 'em all.
Sure, the competition was watered down. Heck a white guy (Allan Wells) won the 100m sprint in Moscow, but the Games went on just the same.
Now, 28 years on, there are grumblings about giving the Beijing Games a miss because of China's policies/actions in Darfur and Tibet and its human rights record.
The Olympic flame relay has become a shamble as protesters have vented their spleens and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) admits to having a crisis on its hands.
However, boycotts - real or threatened, are not going to solve anything in Darfur or Tibet or mainland China. Those horrible problems have to be worked out by the people who get paid big bucks to sit on their rumps at the United Nations. Athletes not turning up to play is not going to make an iota of difference. The implacable Chinese are not going to bat an eyelid and the Games will go ahead, regardless of what the rest of the world thinks and does.
If individual athletes are concerned enough not to go, that's fine and totally up to them and I applaud their scruples, but the best statement that can be made is to "stick it to them" by winning gold (remember the black power salute in 1968?).
Imagine if the US boycotted the 1936 Games in Berlin - Hitler's Olympics, which were primarily staged to highlight the dominance of the Aryan race.
Imagine if black track legend Jesse Owens was never given the chance to win four fabulous gold medals and shatter that Nazi's racist rubbish.
The world would be a different place; maybe a Clayton's world.
