Canada’s diplomatic boycott of Beijing Olympics a sign of ‘progress,’ athletes say
Global News
Canada has decided to impose a diplomatic boycott for the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics in China. a decision some applaud as it gives the 'moral choice' to the athletes.
Canadian Olympian Angela Schneider remembers how she felt when she learned the Soviet Union and several Eastern Bloc nations were boycotting the 1984 Olympics.
“I cried that day because I thought … (in the) future, these Games are going to have an asterisk beside them,” said Schneider, who competed in those Games and won silver in coxed four rowing.
“No matter how well we do … it’s always going to be with the qualification that people will say, ‘But the Soviets weren’t there, the East Germans weren’t there.’”
Though rare, Olympic boycotts do happen. One surrounded the 1984 Los Angeles Games, which was largely seen as a retaliation by former Eastern Bloc countries from the 1980 Moscow Games boycott led by Western nations over the former Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan.
Now almost 40 years later, a boycott is clouding over the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics.
Canada on Wednesday joined its allies — including the United States, Australia and New Zealand — in deciding to not send government officials to the upcoming Games over the country’s human rights abuses, particularly against the Uyghur ethnic minority. Other nations are also expected to bow out.
All-out boycotts are devastating for athletes who have spent years preparing to compete, Schneider said, but Canada’s decision to join the diplomatic boycott is a sign of “progress.”
“From an athlete’s perspective, it gives the choice back to the athletes,” said Schneider, who is also the director of the International Centre for Olympic Studies at Western University.