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White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki announced that “the Biden administration will not send any diplomats or official representation to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics,” on Dec. 6, 2021, citing human rights violations the Chinese government has inflicted upon Uyghurs in the country. The move furthered a long line of political and social events outside the Games that have contextualized the international event since Tommie Smith and John Carlos displayed the Black Power salute in 1968.

Multiple nations joined the U.S. in announcing they wouldn’t attend the games, hoping “to embarrass the host city,” according to Rick Burton, a professor of sport management at the David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics at Syracuse University. Then, following the disappearance of Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai, the World Tennis Association announced it would be pulling events from China, encouraging countries to boycott the Beijing Games.

For athletes, however, foreign relation conflicts thrust them in the middle of a battle they can’t take part in. Decisions of boycotts from the Olympic games were made without their input, jeopardizing years of training to qualify for the event. They’ve affected former Syracuse athletes like Gene Mills, barring them from competition. While athletes from the U.S. are still allowed to compete in the Winter Olympics, former prospective Olympians hadn’t been as lucky. Past boycotts, such as the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, have spelled controversy for athletes.

Mills, a former wrestler at Syracuse, remembers Olympic coach Stan Dziedzic telling him in January of 1980 that American athletes might not be able to go to the Olympic games in Moscow. The Soviet Union had just invaded Afghanistan, prompting then-U.S. president Jimmy Carter to recommend not going to Russia, citing a lack of security for the athletes. The team ended up going to a tournament in Tbilisi, Georgia, “not really with President Carter’s blessings,” Mills said.

Mills had worked his way to becoming one of the top wrestlers in the world, pinning the men that eventually finished first through fourth in Moscow. That June, Mills got a call from Dziedzic while Mills was driving back from a wrestling camp in Massachusetts. He told Mills that Olympians were “definitely not going” and were to be at the White House to support Carter.

“I had to pull over a few times because I couldn’t see because my eyes were filled with tears,” Mills said.

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For Mills, the Olympics were an opportunity to create peace and not have politics involved. Jeeyoon Kim, an assistant professor at Falk, said she genuinely believes in the Olympics’ values.

Kim worked in 2018 to get the Summer Olympics to PyeongChang, South Korea, another event marred with protests amidst the Free Tibet movement. Protesters tried to put out the Olympic torch as it was carried across parts of South Korea in the weeks leading up to the Games, prompting the Korean Olympic Committee to surround whoever was carrying the torch with guards as protection.

“It didn’t really feel like a celebration of the Olympics,” Kim said. “It really felt like a very politically contained, contaminated event.”

But Kim said the boycotts — much like the U.S.’ this year — have become more sophisticated. Boycotts in the Cold War era, such as in 1980, simply involved pulling all athletes from competition, a move Kim believes was heavily influenced by nationalism placing the country’s agenda over an athlete’s Olympic preparation.

Gene Mills was named an All-American four times at Syracuse. Courtesy of Gene Mills

Christopher Campbell, a former Syracuse assistant wrestling coach and Olympian, said the boycott in 1980 was done with “such callousness and lack of empathy.” Campbell said he worked for six or seven years to get to the Moscow Olympics, and he said Carter’s move to boycott was like taking away your home and “saying we don’t give a sh*t about you.” He and Mills both agreed that the decision, regardless of safety or a country’s human rights concerns, should be left up to the athletes.

“If you have the rationale of boycotting the Olympics because the country’s violating human rights, there’s no place in the world where you can have the Olympics,” Campbell said.

But since Carter’s decision, Kim said countries have placed more emphasis on the individual, ensuring that they can still compete while protesting another country’s decisions. In 2014, people called for boycotts of the Winter Games in Sochi, citing LGBTQ laws that violated human rights. The U.S. responded by sending openly gay athletes Billie Jean King and Caitlin Cahow as the country’s delegation.

There were calls to boycott the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, because the Olympic committee and Brazilian government moved residents of lower-income communities to build stadiums. Burton said that when he worked with the 2008 Olympics, they estimated that 70% of the world saw some part of the Games. Protesters at each event know that billions of people will be watching, giving them one of the largest platforms in human history to broadcast their movement or message.

Still, the Olympic Charter Rule 50 states that “no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.” The U.S. Olympic Committee changed that rule in 2020, allowing for political protests during the Olympic trials.

But how you define social justice, Kim said, is “tricky” as the global perspective of social justice is much different than the U.S.’ and other “westernized countries.” Boycotting the Moscow Olympics led to Russia and multiple other Eastern Bloc nations skipping the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Burton said each boycott lends itself to be revisited upon by other countries later on.

“What we do as a country circa 2022 may be revisited upon us in 2028 because I think we as a country are not without our own mistreatment of the poor, or the racial injustice that we’ve seen over the last few years,” Burton said.

Recent events, such as the murder of George Floyd, serve as concrete examples other countries can point toward as human rights violations within American borders, Burton said. “We’re doing all of these horrible things as a country, really, really horrible, evil things, and we want to boycott China?”

While Syracuse’s one former athlete — Japanese women’s ice hockey player Akane Hosoyamada — will compete in the games, the announcement of boycotts reopened memories and emotions for Mills and Campbell about their lost opportunity. Mills was bitter for “many, many years.” Campbell said he gets more disgusted each time he thinks about the boycott or the way in which Carter handled it.

“It’s nice that the politicians are saying that the diplomats won’t go, because that’s fine, and I think that shows maturity,” Campbell said. “Hopefully there won’t be (anyone) who comes up saying that we should boycott again.”

Published on February 3, 2022 at 3:22 am

Contact Anthony: aalandt@syr.edu | @anthonyalandt