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USOPC opposes ‘ineffective’ 2022 Games boycott: Lyons
LOS ANGELES, March 11, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – The United States Olympic and
Paralympic Committee (USOPC) reiterated its opposition to a boycott of the
2022 Beijing Winter Olympics on Wednesday following calls for US athletes to
skip the event over China’s human rights record.
USOPC president Susanne Lyons said boycotts were ineffective and unfairly
penalised athletes who had been preparing for the Games.
“While we would never want to minimise what is happening from a human
rights perspective in China, we do not support an athlete boycott,” Lyons
said, citing the case of the US boycott of the Moscow Olympics in 1980.
“We believe such boycotts have not been effective in the past,
particularly in 1980,” Lyons said. “Those boycotts only hurt athletes who
have trained their entire lives for this opportunity to represent their
country.
“We believe this is an issue that should be addressed at a government to
government level with China.”
The Games are scheduled to begin on February 4 next year, just six months
after the delayed summer Tokyo Olympics.
China is facing global scrutiny over a range of issues, notably the mass
internment of Uighur Muslims in the western region of Xinjiang, which the US
has said amounts to genocide.
It is also under pressure for its rights clampdown in the former British
colony of Hong Kong.
On Friday, former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo joined lawmakers who
have urged President Joe Biden to order a boycott of the Games, saying
China’s “nasty” activity made it an inappropriate host.
Last month a group of US senators introduced a resolution seeking to
remove the Games from China, urging the International Olympic Committee to
allow new bids for the Games.
Lyons said the USOPC was in dialogue with officials in Congress as well as
the White House, emphasising that the 1980 Moscow boycott had not worked.
“We need to understand what the impact was in 1980 when we boycotted,” she
said. “What was meant to be accomplished by that boycott was not
accomplished. In fact all that happened was that the hopes and dreams of a
large number of athletes never came to fruition. “We believe these
geopolitical issues and concerns are really best handled on a government to
government basis.
“That’s what we’re encouraging and speaking with members of Congress
about.”
BSS/AFP/FI/0748 hrs