Talk of 2014 Russia Olympic Boycott Drudges Memories of 1980

New York, August 21 , 2008 -- When U.S. Congressman Jim Gerlach (R) from Pennsylvania appeared on Neil Cavuto’s FOX BUSINESS SHOW – Your World With Neil Cavuto – on August 18 espousing the International Olympic Committee take action against Russia to rescind the opportunity for Sochi, Russia to host the 2014 Olympic Winter Games, the conversation quickly turned to talk of 1980 and the last time the Olympic Games were held in Russia.

In 1980, Moscow was the site of the Olympic Summer Games and the U.S.-led boycott of those Games because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

was the reason more than 60 countries around the world stayed away from the Soviet capital. Talk of a boycott became reality but the action did not force the Soviets out of Afghanistan. Will talk of another boycott or moving the Games from Sochi affect the desired change Rep. Gerlach and others in Congress are hoping?

Boycott: Stolen Dreams of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games tells the story of the 1980 U.S.-led boycott of the Moscow Olympic Games Written by identical twins Tom Caraccioli and Jerry Caraccioli, Boycott: Stolen Dreams of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games (New Chapter Press) chronicles the stories of 18 elite American athletes who trained thousands of hours for their once-in-a-lifetime chance at Olympic glory in Moscow only to become pawns in a political Cold War chess match between superpowers. The book also outlines the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that led to the boycott, efforts by a group of athletes to overturn the boycott by legal means, and the entire 1980 team eventually receiving the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award which is bestowed by the United States Congress.

“We saw in 1980 that whenever threats are used as political leverage when discussing a boycott of the Olympics, the only real victims are the athletes’” said BOYCOTT author Tom Caraccioli. “Thankfully, talk of a boycott did not lead to one at the 2008 Olympic Games. The stories of heartache and disappointment chronicled in BOYCOTT prove that whenever politics and the Olympics intersect, seldom does it prove to be a good mix.”