RateItAll: The Opinion Network

A local High School track coach whom I know personally was on the 1980 US Olympic Team. (Randy Wilson, U of Oklahoma). he doesn't speak much of it, but his bitterness at the loss of the opportunity he worked so hard to earn does show. I don't blame him a bit. Just what did Jimmy Carter accomplish with his childish international version of We're going to take our ball and go home.? That's an open-ended question if anyone wants it. Just what did Carter accomplish??

I honestly feel that the '80 Boycott was the last straw that killed our Nation's confidence in Jimmy Carter. How could Carter do it after the U.S. Hockey team's triumph. [Then again, I was actually scared that a Red Dawn / AMERIKA scenario was imminent had Carter been re-elected.] I remember going to D.C. in the Summer of 1980 to compete in a Rowing Regetta on the Potomac River. Our crew (Crescent Boat Club of Philly) was pretty good and we were in the feature race against 2 boats from Potomac Boat Club. Before the start, another entrant made its way to the starting line. The boat was made up of rather tall, muscular men and women who were in a very loud and jovial mood (which is kind of strange before a boat race; I was always in knots before the start). My boat raced quite well and finished 2nd out of 4 crews. The Happy boat finished in last. As we returned to the dock, I found out that the additional crew was made up of members of the Boycotted U.S. Olympic team, who were at the White House earlier that day with the President. I think they ended up so pissed off after Carter's bogus assembly, they drank off their frustrations and were rowing under the influence. Though I essentially sucked as a rower, I can always claim I beat an Olympic crew. [By the way, the 1984 Olympics were boycotted, for no other reason than the Soviets saying, You did it to ussky, we'll do it to yousky.

Boycotting the Olympics because of politics? Pretty stupid.

Boycotts of the Olympic Games are foolish and actually run contrary to the very purpose of the event. The modern games are designed to provide a least one venue where people and cultures, represented by their athletes, come together, socialize, and hopefully learn how others live and think. Boycotts, such as those by the Americans and Soviets in 1980 and 1984, or in the form of banning participation by South Africa during apartheid are equally foolish. Those who champion such forms of protest just don't get the big picture.

Boycotting an olympic games for political purposes is no worse than hosting them for political purposes. The Berlin games of 1936 were an homage to Nazi ideology and culture, and it outraged Hitler that a black American swept the track events contradicting aryan superiority. The host city and country have a lot of economic and political benefits brought about because of the games, and boycotting is an accepted political tool to express disagreement with a particular regime. If someone thinks that politics has no place in the olympics, they obviously have not been paying attention, because the games are nothing BUT politics.

Most definitly, if i was an athelete i would be pissed if my country didn't go because some porker in DC said no. We can trace all of our problems back to the treaty of versailles. And do you know where versailles is FRANCE of all places. so every stinking war after the great war, the "war to end all wars" can be traced to the french, what a bunch of women. Let's remember folks that communism is bad, north korea is bad, VANCOUVER 2010. YEAH. SUBMIT

Stupid, every one of them. But not a bad as killing people.

The people who organise these boycotts seem to have had no genuine interest in the Olympics as such. Why are these hypocrites allowed to interfere? The sporstmen and women who dedicate years of their lives to prepare for these events have a right to compete. Politicians need to keep their noses out.

In some perverse way, the mindset that causes governments to boycott Olympics is not far from the mindset used by the terrorists responsible for the massacre in Munich. Taking advantage of the visibility and popularity of the Olympics to make a political statement is unacceptable.