In 1980, by the initiative of the United States and personally President Jimmy Carter, a number of western countries decided to boycott the Summer Olympics held in Moscow. The justification was that the Soviet Union waged a war in Afghanistan. It was also said that human rights were violated in the Soviet Union.
Both claims were based on facts, Soviet troops indeed gravely interfered in the domestic affairs of Afghanistan, and in terms of human rights, that country was far from civilized notions.
But if that was a reason to boycott the Olympics, then the same must have been done in the following years when the Olympic Games were held in Atlanta (1996), Salt Lake City (2002) and London (2012), because the countries of the western coalition were just as ruthlessly interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq, Syria, Libya and the same Afghanistan.
If the Olympics is an arena for solving political problems, then, I think, it becomes senseless. If the Olympics are held in spite of political disagreements, as the ancient Greeks and Pierre de Coubertin thought, then politics should not play any role here at all.
Depriving Russia of the Olympics, of course, is politics, doping has nothing to do with it. If it was a matter of doping, no professional athlete from any country would take part in any competition. In economically developed countries, particularly in the United States and China, the technology of doping has reached a high level because of its resources. In the case of a normal check, the athletes of those countries will be disqualified first. But in any case, they should disqualify the athletes, not the state.
Particularly British athletes pe rformed representing not their flag but the Olympic flag in the 1980 boycotted Olympic Games in Moscow. The same is now offered to the Russians. Of course, it is offensive. Whether they will agree or not, I do not know. But giving advice from aside is easy.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
