CBC Newsmagazine
No to Moscow
Broadcast Date: April 28, 1980
For a country with an extremely low Olympic profile, Afghanistan is having a huge impact on the 1980 Games. On Dec. 24, 1979, Soviet forces invade the country, an act of aggression that is roundly condemned by the global community. In response, U.S. President Jimmy Carter threatens a boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow if the Soviets do not withdraw. By April 1980, the boycott is assured. In this clip, Lord Killanin, president of the International Olympic Committee, insists that sports should not be used for political purposes.No to Moscow
• Afghanistan sent a team to the 1980 Olympic Games.
• Both the Canadian government and the Canadian Olympic Association supported the 1980 boycott. In the United Kingdom, however, the government favoured a boycott but the British Olympic Association did not. It was left to the athletes to decide whether they wished to attend; many did, and the team from Great Britain took home 21 medals.
• The U.S. government said the boycott was the "strongest single step [the United States] could take to persuade [the Soviet Union] to remove their troops from Afghanistan."
• Afghanistan was expelled from the Olympics in 1999 because of the repressive Taliban regime that ran the country at the time. After the fall of the Taliban, Afghanistan was readmitted and participated in the 2004 Athens Games.
No to Moscow
Medium: Television
Program: CBC Newsmagazine
Broadcast Date: April 28, 1980
Guest(s): Diane Jones Konihowski, Michael Killanin, Mark McGuigan, Gerald Regan, Denis Whitaker
Reporter: Tom Leach, Joe Schlesinger
Duration: 11:29
Last updated:
July 24, 2008
No to Moscow .
The CBC Digital Archives Website.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Last updated: July 24, 2008.
[Page consulted on Feb. 13, 2012.]