Athletes’ chance Olympic medals gone forever?
NZPA New 7 York' There will be 200 gold medals, but more losers than usual in this Olympiad. Here are just a few 7 . The cream of Kenya’s athletes — James Maina and Mike Boit in the 800 metres, Henry Rono in the 5000 and 10,000 metres, Kip Rono in the 3000 metres steeplechase — will not get their names on the inmortal honour roll. The American sprinters, Harvey Glance and Jim Samford, will win nothing at the games in Moscow, nor will Bill Rodgers in the marthon. Nowary’s Grete Waitz and the American, Mary Decker, will miss the 1500 m.
Debbie Brill, of Canada, will not see her long dream of a high jump gold medal come true.
Competing is more important than winning, said the late Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern games. These athletes and hundreds more will do neither, because they will not be there.
As the Olympic boycott spreads, the blow to the athletes becomes clear. For many, the chance of an Olympic medal will be gone foreVer. With the athletes in mind, one member of the International Olympic Committee (1.0. C. Kevan Gosper, of Australia, is pressing for a year’s postponement of the games in the hope that the Afgha-
nistan problem will go away. “We owe it to this generation of athletes who have readied their peak of performance for these Olympics,” Gosper said. Gosper said he fears that if the games go ahead this year, with the United States, West Germany and most other Western countries absent, the Olympic movement may be irreparably damaged. The 1.0. C., however, has decided the games must start in Moscow on July 19, the date of the opening ceremony. Lord Killanin, president of the 1.0. C., has had private talks with the Soviet President, Leonid Brezhnev, and the U.S. President, Jimmy Carter, in the last ten days, and he has
made no apparent progress.
Mr Carter told him that the United States Would not change its mind about boycotting the games and would continue to urge other countries to boycott them.
The 1.0. C. executive board is scheduled to meet at Lausanne on June 9. If the boycott goes on growing and the games come down to a competition between countries of the Communist bloc, the board might reconsider and talk about a postponement, but there is no sign of that happening at present. ?4r Willi Daume, president of the West German National Olympic Conn mittee and a senior member of the 1.0. C., said recently: “A postponement
for one year would be the ideal solution, if it were possible. But apart from the problem of sport schedules, it would be necessary for all countries, including the United States, to pledge themselves to participate in an Olympics in 1981.” “Clearly, that would be impossible in present political conditions.” Mr Daume made his remarks before the West German N.O.C. made its decision to join the boycott. At the time he did know whether West German athletes would be going to Moscow 7 or not. Mr Gosper has asked for a special session of the 86-member 1.0. C. He is unlikely to succeed in that, either. A special meeting can
be demanded by half of the members, of it can be called by the president at his discretion, in which < ,;se he has to give one month’s notice. Since the full 1.0. C. decided in February to go ahead with the games inspite of the threat of a boycott Lord Killanin believes there is nothing more to be done before May 24, the deadline for entries. Then the full extent of the boycott will be known.
By then, it will be little more than a month to the next scheduled session of the 1.0. C. in Moscow the week before the games.
The Olympic Charter, meanwhile, gives the executive board full powers to make decisions in emergencies.
Lord Killanin Is believed opposed to a special session because members might go to that and then stay away from the annual session in Moscow, where important decisions have to be made for the future.
The programme for the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles has to be completed. Lord Killanin is due to step down at the Moscow Games, and a president and vice-presi-dent have to be elected.
“I shall not be a candidate.” he said recently, but 1.0. C. members believe he will be ready to go on for a further term if he is pressed to do so and no rival candidates are put forward.
As the boycott grows.
the only sporting powers cutside the Communist bloc which are likely to go to Moscow are Britain, France, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Greere. India, Brazil. Mexico and New Zealand.
National Olympic Committees still undecided — mainly Australia, Japan | and Italy — are under heavy pressure from their ! governments to join the boycott.
The Government of the Republic of Ireland has , strongly urged its Olympic committee to boycott. Lord Killanin is a member : of tlie Irish N.O.C. and will need all his persuasive powers to keep Irish athletes in.
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