The founder of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin, conceived of his philosophy of “Olympism” as being above politics. Yet in truth, politics has always intruded upon the Games. Germany and Japan were not invited to the 1948 competition. A US-led boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, in protest at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the year before, led dozens of countries to pull out. The Soviets responded in 1984 with an Eastern bloc counter-boycott in Los Angeles.
This year, politics is once again encroaching on Olympic sport after Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, a Belarusian runner, accused her country’s Olympic Committee of attempting to forcibly repatriate her home on August 1.
