An Australian Olympian who defied government pleas to boycott the 1980 Olympics says Russian athletes should not be used as political pawns and should be free to compete as neutrals in Paris.
Former champion decathlete Peter Hadfield said governments had a history of using athletes as “cheap political pressure” and criticised a move by the Australian government to co-sign a letter demanding a ban on Russian athletes at the next Olympics.
The Australian government wants the International Olympic Committee to take stronger action on Russian involvement in the 2024 Olympics.Credit:AP
“Based on my experiences of Moscow, I’m very anti athletes being used as pawns in these sorts of situations,” Hadfield said.
“If there’s been systematic drug-taking by athletes then they shouldn’t be able to compete. This is a different matter whereby a decision to go to war wasn’t made by them, and I’m sure the vast majority don’t support the war in Ukraine. They shouldn’t be penalised for a decision they haven’t had any input into.”
Australia on Tuesday joined more than 30 countries, including 2024 Games hosts France, the United States and the United Kingdom protesting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The letter called on the International Olympic Committee to ban Russian athletes from competition, unless the IOC could toughen up its guidelines on athletes competing as neutrals.
The move put it in opposition to the Australian Olympic Committee, which responded with a statement backing the IOC.
“The Olympic athletes at the time became a very cheap way of applying pressure that achieved nothing.”
Australian decathlete Peter Hadfield
“The AOC supports the IOC’s position that the role of sport is to bring the world together through peaceful competition – the role of sport is to promote harmony and not punish individual athletes for the policies and action of their governments,” the statement read.
“We cannot discriminate against athletes based on their passports or the actions of their governments.”
Hadfield was among a contingent of Australian athletes who endured abuse and death threats to compete in the 1980 Games in Moscow.
Peter Hadfield competes in the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.Credit:
The AOC sent a team after narrowly voting to defy a directive of the government led by Malcolm Fraser, which urged the AOC to boycott the event. Despite having the support of their national committee, about half the Australian team pulled out of the campaign. Many who attended, including Hadfield and 16-year-old swimmer Lisa Forrest, succumbed to sustained criticism and failed to perform at their best.
Hadfield remains scathing of the government’s stance at the time and said the same dynamic existed in this instance.
“There was a lot of pressure being applied by the government, and then subsequent pressure by supportive business groups and other organisations … for athletes to be provided with financial incentives to boycott the Games,” he said.
“At the same time there were continued economic partnerships and trade between Australia and Russia, so Australian business weren’t being affected. The Olympic athletes at the time became a very cheap way of applying pressure that achieved nothing.”
Russia is still operating under IOC sanctions banning any government officials from either Russia or Belarus from being invited to international sporting events and prohibiting IOC-linked sports events in both countries.
The organisation – led by former German fencer Thomas Bach, who was himself forced to boycott the 1980 Games in line with Germany’s stance at the time – in January stood by its sanctions against Russia but also reaffirmed its belief Russian athletes should be allowed to compete as neutrals.
This principle was used at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, when Russia was under a worldwide ban for state-sponsored doping. Athletes competed under the so-called Russian Olympic Committee flag, but the move was criticised for being ineffectual.
ROC team uniforms could not feature the Russian flag but could use the country’s national colours. They could also feature the name “Russia” but had to include “neutral athlete” or similar, in the same size.
The Russian flag could not be flown in an official capacity in Tokyo and the national anthem was banned. Gold medal-winning athletes instead listened to Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1 while the Olympic flag was raised.
The signatories to this week’s letter said those measures did not go far enough, but the IOC hit back questioning the human rights implications of continuing to exclude athletes from two countries.
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