What the 1976 Montreal Games symbolize to those that boycotted it, 50 years later

Nigerian sprinter Gloria Obajimi had simply bought a brand new digicam on the Olympic Village when she discovered she had an hour to pack up and depart the positioning of what was alleged to be her first Olympics: the 1976 Montreal Games.

Barely 20 years previous, Obajimi had spent two weeks previous to that information acclimatizing to Montreal. She says she felt “on top of the world,” mingling with athletes she had at all times appeared as much as and even being photographed for a few articles about life within the Village.

But, on July 16, 1976, whereas she was fantasizing about all of the pictures she would take herself, the president of the Nigerian Olympic Committee, Maj. Gen. Olufemi Olutoye, introduced Nigeria was becoming a member of what could be the primary main boycott within the Games’ historical past.

That 12 months, 29 international locations, largely African, withdrew from the competitors in protest of New Zealand’s participation, after its rugby crew kicked off a tour of apartheid South Africa – mere weeks following the lethal Soweto rebellion. That large student-led protest noticed South African police brutally crack down on 1000’s of demonstrators protesting the introduction of Afrikaans as a language of instruction in Black faculties. 

As Olutoye put it at the time, the boycott was “an eloquent protest at New Zealand’s blatant disregard for human dignity by its avowed and open support and collaboration with racist South Africa in sport.”

The day after the announcement, Obajimi watched the opening ceremony of the Games at Heathrow Airport throughout a gasoline cease on her method again to Lagos.

“We were all in tears. I couldn’t believe it. It was a big shock,” she mentioned.

As Montreal marks the fiftieth anniversary of the one Summer Olympics held in Canada, the 1976 Games stand out to Obajimi as a fleeting second that introduced ache — but enduring pleasure. 

“I was glad that I could beat my chest to say that, for apartheid to end in South Africa, we were part of those that paid the big price.”

The nice race that by no means was

Tanzania’s observe star Filbert Bayi says he accepted the information of the boycott quickly after studying about it. He had already been pulled out of occasions involving New Zealand earlier that 12 months over the nation’s determination to ask South Africa to participate in a softball event. 

Headlines speculating about Bayi’s extremely anticipated look on the 1976 Games had been swirling for months. His 1500m race in opposition to New Zealand’s John Walker was alleged to be a showdown for the ages, with the 2 setting and outdoing one another’s information within the leadup.

But, the Supreme Council for Sport in Africa (SCSA) had been threatening a boycott since no less than May after New Zealand’s rugby crew introduced the South Africa tour.

After many negotiations, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in the end didn’t grant the African nations’ request to bar New Zealand from collaborating on the Olympics. As far because it was involved, rugby was not an Olympic sport, due to this fact the matter fell outdoors the IOC’s jurisdiction – and it had already barred South Africa from competing since 1964 due the nation’s apartheid insurance policies. 

“And then we said ‘OK fine, if they agree and share this Olympics with the people who shared [with] South Africa … Let it go,’” mentioned Bayi.

Tanzania formally withdrew its contingent from the competitors every week earlier than the beginning of the Games. 

Bayi examine Walker’s successful time on the 1976 Games within the newspaper. It was 5 seconds slower than what Bayi says he himself had run at a contest simply two months earlier.

“I could have won, if not gold medal – the first gold medal for Tanzania – maybe silver or any medal,” he mentioned. 

To this present day, Tanzania’s medal depend contains simply two silvers, each gained within the 1980 Moscow Games — certainly one of them by Bayi.

“I was ready [in 1976] and I’m sure John Walker was very happy when I wasn’t there,” he mentioned, including that Walker has assured him since these Games that he was, actually, not completely satisfied. 

Although the 2 met on a number of events after that, it was by no means once more on the racetrack.

Did the boycott work?

The 1976 boycott motion began slowly after which unfolded abruptly, with the vast majority of the collaborating nations pulling out the day after the opening ceremony.

Jean Lévesque, who teaches historical past at UQAM, says the 1976 boycott was a step in a bigger course of.

Years earlier, when the IOC instructed it could invite South Africa to the 1968 Games, the specter of an African-led boycott stopped it in its tracks. Most of the African international locations that issued ultimatums had simply gained their independence and entered the IOC. 

“If they didn’t win many medals, at least they had a platform to voice and have more support [internationally],” mentioned Lévesque.

Immediately following the 1976 boycott, South Africa was expelled from the worldwide federation governing observe and subject.

The following 12 months, in a bid to avoid wasting the 1978 Commonwealth Games, the affiliation’s member states, together with New Zealand, agreed to chop all sports activities ties with South Africa as long as it continued its coverage of apartheid.

The 1976 protest additionally set the stage for the 1980 boycott of the Moscow Games, based on Lévesque, which was associated to the Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan and Cold War divisions.

“Montreal was a precedent,” mentioned Lévesque. “Once you use the boycott … to raise your voice and to make a statement and try to influence policies, it’s easy to get back to it.”

On politics and athletes

Despite the abusive results of South Africa’s insurance policies on its Black athletes, the query of whether or not sports activities ought to combine with politics was raised always by officers concerned within the 1976 Games.  

The query continues to come up at this time, however sports activities historian Helen Lenskyj says the reply was already evident in 1976.

“Of course it’s political,” she mentioned. “It involves politicians, it’s geopolitical in the sense it involves nation states fighting to get gains.”

She says the world hasn’t seen a repeat of the Olympic boycotts from the 70s and 80s as a result of the technique has developed to focus on, most notably, sponsors.

Obajimi and Bayi each say that, in hindsight, they don’t assume governments ought to use their athletes to push political agendas, given the sacrifice that coaching for the Olympics entails.

Bayi says he believes he was at his prime in 1976.

“It [the 1976 Games] will remain as history to me. It is history. It has passed. It will never come and I will not be the same as I used to be,” he mentioned.

In 2000, Obajimi visited South Africa, discovering herself with the ability to transfer round and exist as a Black particular person in a method that will not have been potential only a decade earlier.  

“I was happy. This is the South Africa that we boycotted the 1976 Olympic Games for,” she mentioned.

Obajimi did fulfil her Olympic dream by representing Nigeria in Moscow in 1980, however stress associated to her college exams meant these didn’t go so effectively. She says that for a while, the 1976 Games left a vacuum inside her. 

Now 70 and retired, Obajimi sees her standing as an almost-Olympian at 20 as a win.

“I had gone there [to the 1976 Olympics] although I wasn’t able to compete. But it’s all part of life. And then we move on from there,” she mentioned. 

“And looking at my life in its entirety, I can see that I don’t have any regrets about that.”