Moscow Games ignored by P.M.

Press, 3 May 1983, Page 3

Moscow Games ignored by P.M.

PA Wellington The disrupted Moscow Olympic Games were yesterday studiously ignored by the Prime Minister, Mr Muldoon, when he launched a $2 million appeal for funds to send a team to the Los Angeles • Games next year. New Zealand last competed in the Olympic Games in 1976, he said. The director of the appeal, a Wellington businessman, Mr Jock Lee, followed Mr Muldoon’s lead and said Los Angeles would “effectively” be New Zealand’s first Olympics for eight years. The Prime Minister also launched the appeal to send a team to Moscow, but later joined the United States and Britain in urging a boycott of the Games because of the Soviet Union’s intervention in Afghanistan. Government support of the New Zealand team for

Moscow was withdrawn and although New Zealand had ah official presence at the Games, it comprised only a modern pentathlete and three canoeists.

Mr Muldoon said that Government support for the team for Los Angeles—which could total a record 200 competitors—would be substantial. He gave no figure, but said it would be in addition to the Government’s annual grant of $60,000 to the Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association. “ . . . It is widespread public response that is needed,” he said, “not only to raise the amount needed, but to let the New Zealanders for the 1984 Olympics know the people are behind them.”

The Shell group of companies, which will underwrite the cost of the appeal, was named as the first major sponsor.