Analysis : Modern Sports Motto: Let Games and Boycotts Begin

From the other side of the English Channel, it is clear that the sun is setting on the British Commonwealth.

Only 27 of the 58-member nations were in Edinburgh, Scotland, Thursday for the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games, the latest but certainly not the last victim of the boycott epidemic in international athletics.

As in the case of Mary Decker’s fall in the 1984 Summer Olympics, there are those who have rushed to say that the boycott is Zola Budd’s fault. The replay will show otherwise.

It is simplistic to blame either the runner Budd or the swimmer Annette Cowley, South African-born athletes who have received British citizenship and, in theory, are allowed to compete under the Union Jack.

Although Budd and Cowley make sensational headlines in the sports pages throughout Great Britain, the boycott is in reality aimed at an equally competitive woman, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

It is because of Thatcher’s refusal to endorse economic sanctions against South Africa that the Commonwealth Games, not to forget the future of the commonwealth itself, have been threatened.

If the status of Budd and Cowley as British subjects were the only contention, Commonwealth Games officials believe that there would have been no boycott by 31 African and Caribbean nations, territories and colonies.

Fearing the worst, which subsequently has occurred, members of Edinburgh’s District Council attempted last winter to have South African natives--specifically Budd--restricted from participation in the Commonwealth Games.

Edinburgh officials were concerned not only about the financial implications of a boycott but also about the potential for violence. The last time Budd competed in Edinburgh, she was run off the cross-country course by an anti-apartheid demonstrator.

Seeking a resolution, English athletic officials polled the sports organizations from other members of the commonwealth and were assured that Budd’s presence would not result in a boycott.

The English mistake was in consulting sports officials instead of politicians, for ultimately, politicians made the decision to boycott. Isn’t it always the politicians?

If the decision had belonged to U.S. sports officials in 1980, there would have been no boycott of the Moscow Olympics. The same is true of Soviet sports officials in regard to the Los Angeles Olympics four years later.

In both cases, it was politicians who turned thumbs down.

For that reason, it is impossible to be optimistic about the 1987 Pan American Games in Indianapolis, even though Cuban sports officials have insisted in discussions with the organizing committee that their athletes will compete. Not until Fidel Castro says the Cubans will compete will Indianapolis have a guarantee.

The same holds true for the 1988 Summer Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea. The chairman of the Soviet Union’s sports committee, Marat Gramov, said last week that the Soviets will be in Calgary, Canada, for the 1988 Winter Olympics but still have reservations about the Seoul Games.

He will continue to say the Soviets have reservations until the Kremlin instructs him to say otherwise. About that there is no reservation.

Many track and field athletes whose countries are in the commonwealth were in Paris Tuesday night for an international meet.

Budd was supposed to be here but withdrew. Speculation among English journalists was that her recent performances have been disappointing because of the emotional stress caused by her involvement in the Commonwealth Games controversy.

She and Cowley originally were members of the English team, then were rejected in an attempt to appease the boycotting nations. It appeased no one, another indication that Budd and Cowley are bit players.

The athletes who were here Tuesday night, some of whom are competing in the Commonwealth Games but most of whom are not competing because of the boycott, were virtually unanimous on one point: They all said they would be in favor of the boycott if they felt it would make a difference in South Africa. None of them thought it would.

“Boycotts don’t work,” Canadian high jumper Debbie Brill said. “They hurt athletes and don’t help anyone.”

Echoing that sentiment, a Commonwealth Games and British sports official, Dick Palmer, used the U.S.-inspired boycott of the Moscow Olympics as an example.

“The Russians are still in Afghanistan after 1980,” he told the Daily Telegraph of London.

But the fact that Soviet troops remain in Afghanistan does not necessarily mean that Jimmy Carter’s boycott was not effective.

It perhaps was naive of the Carter Administration to say that an Olympic boycott would bring the Afghanistan issue to the attention of the Soviet public. When mothers’ sons began coming home in body bags, the war no longer was a secret in the Soviet Union.

But the boycott did bring the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan to the attention of the American public, with an exclamation point. It also cost the Soviets millions of dollars in hard currency, which they covet for trade purposes. Some would say that the Olympic boycott was the least that Carter could do, and in retrospect, it was the least that he did.

Leaders of nations that are boycotting the Commonwealth Games no doubt feel the same moral imperative.

There are indications that their actions have increased pressure from within Great Britain on Thatcher--reportedly even from the Queen--to consider economic sanctions against South Africa.

But even if no real changes are forthcoming in British policy toward South Africa, the boycotting nations obviously feel that it is the thought that counts.