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Boycott
The Olympic Games have often been a privileged field of expression of the political rivalry among nations, as early as from the first organizations. A characteristic example, albeit not the only one, of the relation between politics and the Olympic Games was the boycott (or the threat of a boycott) of the Games. Going back to the history of the Olympic Games we see that the first time that there was recourse to the threat of abstention from the Games was in 1912 by a powerful European state at that time, Austria-Hungary. In 1936, the governance of Germany by the Nazis and the anti-Semitic decrees enacted in this country led the USA mostly and certain other countries as well, among which Great Britain and France, to adopt the threat of a boycott. However, the threat of abstention was not materialized either. After World War II and especially during the 1960s, the 1970s and the 1980s boycott marred the Olympic Games, more or less each time, and especially the organizations of 1976, 1980 and 1984.
The Cold War, namely the confrontation between the USA and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, was one of the two important factors that favoured the adoption of the policy of the Games boycott. Of course, the confrontation between the USA and the Soviet Union in the field of the Olympics was mainly focused on the medal competition, through which they tried to demonstrate the "superiority" of their respective political system. It is what could be called "rivalry of the political systems", which was expressed in all the Olympic organizations between 1952 and 1976, as well as in 1988. The only cases where there was no competition as to which country would win most of the medals and, consequently, the highest place on the unofficial ranking list were the 1980 and the 1984 Olympics, when the Soviet Union and the United States respectively were called to host the Olympic Games. The abstention of the United States and allies in 1980 and of the Soviet Union and its allies in 1984 was a major blow against the prestige of the Games and raised questions as to their future. Eventually, the improvement of the relations between the two countries in the second half of the 1980s, which was expressed at political level through the agreements for the restriction of armaments, and in the field of sport through the organization of the "Goodwill Games" (1986), allowed them to make a common appearance in the Olympic Games of 1988.
The second factor that favoured the adoption of abstention from the Olympic Games, often in the form of threat, was the creation of independent African states and their pursuit of a distinct role in international politics. To this direction, a major issue for the newly established African states was racial segregation, especially in South Africa and Rhodesia. The exclusion of these two countries from the Olympic Games held in the 1960s and the 1970s was a firm request of the majority of the African countries, a request that in all cases was expressed through the threat of abstention from the Games. In all cases, starting from the Olympic Games of 1964, the IOC, yielding to the pressure, did not allow the participation of South Africa. However, the request for the disqualification of New Zealand from the Olympic Games of 1976, because of the participation of a rugby team from New Zealand in games held in South Africa was not accepted resulting in the Games boycott organized by almost 30 African countries.
The Cold War and the increasing political weight of the new countries were the conditions that favoured the adoption of the practice of boycott in most of the organizations between 1956 and 1988. The elimination of these conditions, a development which got under way with the reunification of the two Germanies and was concluded with the break-up of the Soviet Union, marked the abandonment of the practice of boycott and the unobstructed staging of three consecutive Olympic organizations (1992, 1996, 2000), something which had never happened after the 1930sÉ
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