Australian Olympic Officials Won’t Allow Magic Boycott

Australia’s Olympic basketball players will not be allowed to boycott games against the U.S. team if it includes Magic Johnson, who has HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, officials said Friday.

It is not definite that Johnson will play in the Olympic Games at Barcelona this summer, but a doctor for the Australian team suggested a boycott if he does, and some team members were worried.

The Australian Olympic Committee’s executive director, Perry Crosswhite, said in a statement Friday that unilateral action by any members of the basketball team was “out of the question.”

Foreign Minister Gareth Evans also told a news conference in Washington that such an idea was unacceptable. “There’s no question of any boycott of any particular sport at the next Olympics or any other time simply because some individual has tested positive,” he said.

“It’s certainly done Australia’s image no good at all to have a half-baked and wrongheaded comment of this kind being made.”

The Australian basketball coach, Adrian Hurley, had said it would be up to individual players to decide whether they wanted to play.