Same for Canada wrote:
Trudeau Sr. also ruined the dreams of many Canadians. Isn't it amazing the Great Britain changed their mind! Imagine how that would've change history. Coe wouldn't be nearly as well known or influential.
Yes, it's almost scary to think what the history of middle-distance in the 80s would be if GB had taken part in the boycott as Thatcher was urging. I wonder if Coe and Ovett would still have avoided racing each other on the circuit? The 800 and 1500 would have been won by Kirov and Straub. Coe might not even have been given the nod over Peter Elliott in 84 as he wouldn't be the defending champion.
Maybe they would both have been motivated to set crazy times in 1980 and Coe would run even faster than 1:41.7 and maybe both ducked under 3:30? Perhaps they would have agreed to race multiple times and we would have perhaps an even clearer idea as to who was better than we do now?
That boycott is even more ironic in that 20 years later America was invading Afghanistan themselves, fighting the very people they armed against the Soviet Union that caused the boycott, and who had just massacared 3,000 people in New York.