HOW THE MYTH OF BRITISH MIDDLE DISTANCE WAS CONSTRUCTED
In 1980, British athletes attended the Moscow Olympics against the wishes of Margaret Thatcher. Sebastian Coe’s own parents were approached by the government in the shape of Douglas Hurd to put pressure on their son not to compete. As Coe himself recalled, they told him politely to get stuffed.
Exactly. Russia is banned yet Israel isn't? It's insane
... Poland and France should have been banned in 1948 for fighting a 6-year-long war against Germany. The US should have been banned in '48, too, for fighting the Japanese for four years. Afghanistan should have been banned in '80 through '88 for fighting the Soviet Union, South Korea banned in '52 for fighting North Korea, and Great Britain in '84 for fighting Argentina over the Falklands Islands.
I recall Seb Coe commenting on this decision and he said something like …”he didn’t want to be used as a pawn in a geopolitical issue … he had a job to do”
Russia wasn't banned for political reasons, it was banned because of state sponsored doping. The only issue there is why aren't Kenya and Morocco also banned?
I went to high school with Afghan refugees who had escaped in 1980. Their stories were sobering. I was with the great American runner Don Sage in supporting the American boycott. The notion that "sport should not be concerned with politics" is hollow and also hypocritical. It is a sentence that elides a clause. What people really mean when they say it is "sport should not be concerned with any politics that is inconvenient to my whitewashed convenient happy place".
I went to high school with Afghan refugees who had escaped in 1980. Their stories were sobering. I was with the great American runner Don Sage in supporting the American boycott. The notion that "sport should not be concerned with politics" is hollow and also hypocritical. It is a sentence that elides a clause. What people really mean when they say it is "sport should not be concerned with any politics that is inconvenient to my whitewashed convenient happy place".
The boycott was idiotic. History shows that we should have been supporting the Soviets’ actions in Afghanistan.
The USA boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Although the US government tried to get our allies on board with the boycott, none of them went along.
In 1984, the USSR. along with their Eastern European allies (except Romania) boycotted the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
Russian athletes were banned from all sports after Putin invaded Ukraine. They should have been banned for the state sponsored doping they were found to be engaging in during the 2014 Soci Olympics, but they were only given a slap on the wrist.
Russian athletes who have been "neutral", that is to say haven't openly supported Putin's war, will be allowed to compete at the Torino Olympics in 2026.
HOW THE MYTH OF BRITISH MIDDLE DISTANCE WAS CONSTRUCTED
In 1980, British athletes attended the Moscow Olympics against the wishes of Margaret Thatcher. Sebastian Coe’s own parents were approached by the government in the shape of Douglas Hurd to put pressure on their son not to compete. As Coe himself recalled, they told him politely to get stuffed.
If memory serves, Thatcher was in the conservative party(?), and as such didn't do much to help Britan or the British people (perhaps the British Reagan?) Great that the sthlees went.
The cheating was done by the FSB to make Putin look good as was described by Grigory Rodchenkov in the film "Icarus" 2016. The FSB still works on this I see by your post, blaming the jews and glorifying Putin that bombs civilians in Ukraine. Cheap russian propaganda.
HOW THE MYTH OF BRITISH MIDDLE DISTANCE WAS CONSTRUCTED
In 1980, British athletes attended the Moscow Olympics against the wishes of Margaret Thatcher. Sebastian Coe’s own parents were approached by the government in the shape of Douglas Hurd to put pressure on their son not to compete. As Coe himself recalled, they told him politely to get stuffed.
If memory serves, Thatcher was in the conservative party(?), and as such didn't do much to help Britan or the British people (perhaps the British Reagan?) Great that the sthlees went.
Thatcher was indeed a conservative, and yes, she was a disaster for the UK--for workers and owners alike. The section on Thatcher's regime in Tony Judt's book _Postwar_ provides an excellent overview of the perfidy of her policies.
Thatcher won the effort to stay in office for a 11 years. It was not a win for the citizens of the United Kingdom. Her monetarist policies triggered high unemployment, a deep recession, and the end of the UK's manufacturing sector. She also sold off public sector services to the private sector at appallingly low cost, which wrecked important parts of the civil service that were relied upon by millions of citizens. A small portion of the upper middle class did better, but the income gap between rich and poor widened and deepened. Her legacy is a tragic list of calumnies against working people.
Russia wasn't banned for political reasons, it was banned because of state sponsored doping. The only issue there is why aren't Kenya and Morocco also banned?
The national doping ban expired in 2022. Russia is banned for political reasons in another example of Western dastardliness and hypocritical sanctimony.
Ironically Thatcher attended the 1977 English Schools (in Hendon I believe her home district) and wrote in the program that athletes could go onto be successful by representing GB in the 1980 Olympics. Very “Maggie” in a number of ways not least suggesting that making the English Schools in itself wasn’t some form of success.