April 12 passed by without a lot of fuss but 40 years ago it was the date of one of the more lamentable decisions involving sport and politicians and which had significant implications for New Zealand sportspeople.It was when the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) bowed to the wishes of American president Jimmy Carter and decided to boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games.
That set in train a world-wide response boosted in New Zealand by the Prime Minister, Robert Muldoon, a man who only a couple of years earlier had got himself deeply offside with his American allies by describing Carter as 'a peanut farmer'. Months later, in a classic display of irony, Muldoon would allow the 1981 Springbok tour to take place.
Mike Moran, only in the first year into his job as chief spokesman for the USOC – a position he held for another 23 years – remembered that day in Colorado Springs for Thesportsexaminer.com.
He recalled the decision being made that would deny 200 Americans and many others around the world the right to be called Olympians.
The vote on the question of the boycott was passed 1704 to 697 and was a decision that almost put the USOC out of business.
Carter, who would be tipped out of office later in the year by Ronald Reagan, made his call on January 20. But on April 12, the USOC was addressed by Vice President Walter Mondale and the USOC treasurer William E. Simon, who also happened to be a former Secretary of the Treasury.
Following the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, Carter wanted the Olympics to be moved from Moscow to another venue or to be postponed or cancelled if the Soviet Union didn't withdraw its troops.
Mondale's contribution to the USOC meeting was to tell them: "History holds its breath for what is at stake is no less than the future security of the civilized world. If one nation can be subjugated by Soviet aggression, is any sovereign nation truly safe from that fate?... If the Soviet lunge toward the most strategic oil-rich spot on earth fails to unite us, what will?"
In today's world, Mondale's effort would be seen as a classic response to the 'Reds under the bed' Cold War that was even then beginning to peter out.
But Simon, supposedly representing the best interests of the Olympic sportsmen and women of the US said: "It is somewhat incredulous that a group of mature persons whom I consider to be among the most patriotic of Americans can seriously discuss defying the President of the United States on a national security issue."
Carter left no stone unturned to achieve his demand, a call which flew in the face of the International Olympic Committee charter that said all national Olympic committees should resist all pressures whether political, religious or economic. Even worse the USOC's constitution said no member could 'deny or threaten to deny any amateur athlete the opportunity to compete in the Olympic Games.'
So Carter pulled out the old national security line to pour the pressure on. Olympic sponsors were then heavied to not make key payments unless the USOC backed the boycott.
Top-ranked USOC officials were threatened with reductions in their service entitlements in retirement.
An event was organised on July 26, 1980, for the American athletes and at the end of a visit by Carter, who thanked them for their sacrifice, the athletes were given a special medal that had been paid for by the USOC. Those medals were in 2007 given Congressional gold medal status by Congress, the highest civilian award in the US.
Moran said some years later, the 1984 Olympic Greco-Roman gold medalist Jeff Blatnick, who had been one of the 1980 team members, found himself on an internal flight in the US and sharing the first-class cabin with Carter.
Blatnick told him: "As soon as the plane gets up in the air and levels off, he [Carter] gets up and starts saying hi to everybody. I say to the person next to me, 'I wonder how this is going to be?' He gets to me, I go, 'President Carter, I have met you before, I am an Olympian.' He looks at me and says, 'Were you on the 1980 hockey team?' I say, 'No sir, I 'm a wrestler, on the summer team.' He said, 'Oh, that was a bad decision, I'm sorry.'"
There was some karma, albeit less significant, for the Olympians, however. It had been scheduled that Carter would run a leg of the torch relay ahead of the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta near his home town of Plains, Georgia.
But a group of 1980 US Olympians approached Carter representatives and advised that if he was to touch an Olympic torch or wear official clothing, or even take part in the run, they would have a 'major retaliatory response'.
Carter found something else to do on the day concerned.
His presidency may forever be stained by the Iranian storming of the US Embassy in Teheran and the subsequent
hostage crisis, but his treatment of Olympic athletes won't be far behind.
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