The Milwaukee Bucks’ decision to boycott Game 5 of their NBA playoff series against the Orlando Magic on Wednesday was a dramatic response to the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man who was critically injured earlier this week in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The boycott forced the NBA to cancel all three playoff games scheduled for Wednesday.
It is not the first time that a major sporting event has been impacted by a boycott. Here are five notable boycotts in sports through the years.
1980 Moscow Olympics
President Jimmy Carter led a boycott to protest the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow. Carter’s decision was in response to the Soviet Union’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. Only 80 nations out of 147 competed at the Moscow games; ironically, Afghanistan was one of the competing nations. The 1980 Summer Games came after the United States had upset the Soviet hockey team earlier that year during the Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York. While Great Britain supported the boycott, individual athletes traveled to the games and competed under the Olympic flag. Five members of the UK squad won gold medals. Boycotting nations held a pseudo-Olympics, dubbed the Olympic Boycott Games, in Philadelphia, according to ESPN.
1984 Los Angeles Olympics
In a retaliatory move, the Soviet Union and its allies decided to boycott the 1984 Summer Games, which were held in Los Angeles. The only Eastern bloc nation to compete was Romania, and Cuba also boycotted the Games. It was “an exercise in political muscle-flexing,” Marlene Goldsmith wrote in 1995. Without the Soviet bloc, the United States dominated the competition, winning a record 83 gold medals.
“It ought to be remembered by all (that) the Games more than 2,000 years ago started as a means of bringing peace between the Greek city-states,” President Ronald Reagan said at the time. “And in those days, even if a war was going on, they called off the war in order to hold the Games. I wish we were still as civilized.”
1976 Montreal Olympics
The Summer Games in Canada are not as well-known for boycotts, but African nations led an anti-apartheid movement to sit out the games. African nations objected to the International Olympic Committee’s refusal to ban New Zealand from the Games, ESPN reported. The All Blacks’ rugby tour to South Africa, in defiance of the ban on sporting events with the apartheid regime, was the impetus for the walkout. Twenty of the 26 African nations were already in Montreal for the games, but returned home.
1973 Wimbledon
Some of the biggest names in men’s tennis boycotted the prestigious Grand Slam event in 1973, with 79 men refusing to play. The men’s newly formed players’ union, the Association of Tennis Professionals, supported Yugoslavia’s Nikki Pilic, who was suspended by the International Lawn Tennis Federation for not appearing at a Davis Cup series against New Zealand. Only three of the men’s original seeds played in the event. Ilie Nastase, the 1972 finalist, played in the tournament, which was won by Jan Kodes of Czechoslovakia.
1970 South Africa cricket team
The South African cricket team was widely considered to be the best in the world. The team was scheduled to visit Great Britain during the summer of 1970. However, protests against the apartheid regime of South Africa caused the series to be canceled at short notice by the English Cricket Council, ESPN reported. Instead of South Africa, the English team played five test matches against a team made up of players from around the world.