U.K. Govt tells athletes not to go to Games

Press, 16 February 1980, Page 8

U.K. Govt tells athletes not to go to Games

I NZPA Britain! British athletes are being! :advised not to go to the; ! Moscow Olympics, the Prime j Minister (Mrs Margaret Thatcher) has told the Com-, mons. i Mrs Thatcher said the: Government had taken the: decision after the Inter- j national Olympic Com- i mittee’s resolve not to boy-! cott Moscow. She told the House at| question time: "The Government has had to decide what; steps to take next and we. have decided to advise Brit-|' ish athletes not to go to; Moscow.’’ ; Mrs Thatcher was cnal-i lenged bv James Kilfedder ' (United / Ulster Unionist); why she was “attempting tob penalise” British athletes f rather than using political action such as withdrawing : the British ambassador from : Moscow.

She replied: “These Moscow Olympics like their predecessors in 1936 will be used substantially for propaganda purposes. “Athletes are just like any other kind of citizen. They have the same rights and responsibilities towards freedom and its maintenance.” The British Press Association’s chief political correspondent, Arthur Williamson, says Mrs Thatcher - appears to'have got ahead of events' and her own Ministers in making the announcement. It does not appear to have been a decision taken at the latest Cabinet meeting, he writes.

Until Mrs Thatcher made the disclosure during her question time in the Commons the situation, as Ministers understood it, was that any final view to be conveyed to the British

: Olympics Association 'come only after consultatio:;:, ■with the growing number cl* other countries opposed te? the Games being held ir Moscow. Members on both sides o';', the House doubt the wisdorcl. or the effectiveness of Mrsr Thatcher's announcement. They say the Governmenl should not be trapped into a situation of giving advice, ol this nature when it is utterly. unable to enforce it. ' In Lake Placid, New York, the United States Olympic Committee has urged American athletes to keep up their, training in the hope that . they can still go to the’ Olympics in July.

i Robert Kane, the comi mittee’s president, told a i press conference his organisation would cling to any faint hope that the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan would end, permitting Americans to participate in the Moscow Games. “The U.S.O.C. will select and recognise athletes as Olympians, whether or not the’ United States competes in the summer Olympic Games' in 1980. They will be ready in case world conditions change and make Moscow a propitious place to hold the Games,” Mr Kane told reporters.

Questioned about Washington proposals to hold alternative international games for nations which stay away from Moscow, Mr Kane said: “I personally would not endorse them.”

Rather than try to hold unlicensed games, which would mean a split, in world sport, the U.S.O.C. felt the best answer would be to hold a “U.S. festival of sport” for American athletes only, Mr Kane said.