Soviets Agree to Take Part in Seoul Olympics

The Soviet Union announced today that it will take part in the 1988 Seoul Olympics, clearing the way for Soviet and U.S. athletes to face each other at the Summer Games for the first time in 12 years.

Soviet sports officials expressed their support for Communist North Korea’s bid to have some of the Olympic events held there, but made clear that the Soviets would participate in any case.

“Soviet athletes will take part in the Summer Olympic Games of 1988,” Marat Gramov, chairman of the Soviet National Olympic Committee, told a news conference.

“As for the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea, it should take its own decision in this respect,” he said.

Approval Opens Way

The Soviet panel’s vote makes full Eastern Bloc attendance at the Olympiad a virtual certainty, and opens the way for a bevy of Soviet world champions to compete in the Summer Games. Gramov said that between 500 and 520 Soviet athletes will take part.

All Soviet Bloc nations, except Romania, boycotted the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, claiming that they were given insufficient security guarantees for their athletes.

That boycott was widely seen as Soviet retaliation for the decision by the United States and 65 other countries to stay away from the 1980 Olympics in Moscow to protest the Kremlin’s military drive into Afghanistan the previous year.

Gramov was asked repeatedly by reporters about how the security guarantees provided by the South Koreans differed from those made by the Los Angeles Olympic Committee in 1984.

“We were not surprised by any security measures of the South Koreans,” he said. “They just assured us they would provide all necessary arrangements in accord with the Olympic Charter. It was enough to assure our participation in the Olympic Games.”