Hungary pulls out

Press, 18 May 1984, Page 26

Hungary pulls out

NZPA-Reuter Budapest Hungary announced its withdrawal from the Los Angeles Olympic Games yesterday. With Hungary out, the only Eastern bloc countries that have not declared their Olympic intentions are Poland and Rumania. The others have all joined the Soviet boycott.

Yugoslavia, which although a Communist State belongs to the Non-aligned Movement, has announced it will attend the Olympics. “The Hungarian Olympic Committee considers that the present conditions in the organisation of the summer Olympics do not allow Hungarian athletes to participate in the Games,” according to the statement issued by Hungarian official media. The committee “shares the concern of the respective Olympic committees of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries and declares its solidarity with them,” the statement added. Hungary is the eighth country to join the Russians in the boycott. The others are Bulgaria, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Vietnam, Laos, Mongolia and Afghanistan. The withdrawal was tinged with irony, being announced one day after Hungary took the individual and team titles at an international pentathlon event in Budapest with a prowess which showed its squad could have won two pentathlon gold medals at Los Angeles.