ATRadio: Moscow Olympic Boycott, 40 Years Ago

(ATR) The 1980 U.S. boycott of the Moscow Olympics took shape 40 years ago this week. On April 12, 1980 at a raucous meeting in Colorado Springs attended by hundreds of delegates, the U.S. Olympic Committee voted to stay home from the Moscow Olympics.

President Jimmy Carter had called for the boycott as punishment for the December 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union. While initiating the demand for a boycott, the president could not enforce it.

The decision belonged to the USOC,which gathered at the Antlers Hotel in Colorado Springs where the USOC had moved its headquarters from New York City two years before.

In this edition of ATRadio with Ed Hula , two individuals closely involved in the struggle over the boycott remember that moment of Olympic history.

Anita DeFrantz, now a senior member of the IOC, was a new lawyer and had won a bronze medal in rowing at the 1976 Olympics. DeFrantz was one of the protagonists trying to block the U.S. boycott.

Mike Moran was the media director for the USOC, a post he held for two decades more before retiring in Colorado Springs.