Keep politics away from sports

For reasons of security, the torch relay in New Delhi will be a brief affair run on safer, less crowded roads. How different from the day in 1964 when the Olympic torch relay first arrived in the Capital. Shoppers in Connaught Place and Janpath stopped whatever they were doing and rushed to cheer the relay, managed by smart Japanese in dark suits and neat white gloves!
The flame rested for the night at New Delhi���s Town Hall before being given a ceremonial send-off the following day on its flight to Tokyo. No security problems those days, no fears of protests and demonstrations.
When last year 460 odd American athletes who were unable to participate in the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games were awarded Congressional Gold Medals, the highest civilian award of that country, it was a belated recognition of a group of sportspersons whose sweat and toil of four years to prepare for the world���s greatest sports festival went to waste for no fault of theirs.
US President Jimmy Carter had called for a boycott by western democracies to protest the occupation of Afghanistan by the then Soviet Union army. What a shame such a boycott happened at all, whatever the reason.
But at Moscow the show went on. And, believe me, a grand show it was, boycott or no boycott, and when it was all over spectators at the Luzhniki Olympic Stadium struggled to hold back their tears as the mascot baby bear Misha disappeared in the skies at the end of a moving ceremony. When Juan Samaranch, the then president of the International Olympic Committee, called upon the youth of the world to assemble at Los Angeles four years hence for the next games the boycott looked silly.
One cannot forget the shining example of the British government which left it to the country���s Olympic association to decide for itself if it wished to take part in the Moscow Olympics. It goes to the latter���s credit that it somehow raised funds even by selling empty beer bottles to send a contingent to Moscow, thus upholding the principle of keeping politics out of sport.
The world was a still a long way from being split into blocks when the 1936 Olympics were staged in Germany where the legendary Black athlete Jesse Owens stole four gold medals under the eyes of Adolf Hitler himself, where our own Dhyan Chand mesmerised the hockey world - including the Fuhrer seated in his special box - with his wizardry with stick and ball. Did Hitler know that helping Owens out of his run-up trouble in the long jump pit was, of all persons, a sporting German rival jumper by the name of Lutz Long?
To draw the attention of the world to any cause you may be supporting, there is no better platform than the Olympic Games. That is why Munich 1972 was chosen by the Palestinians for the horrible massacre of some Israeli athletes. That is also why black American sprint champions Tommie Smith and John Carlos chose the medals ceremony at the Mexico Games in 1968 for their black gloved salute.
The venerated Dalai Lama, a man of peace, has declared that he wants the Beijing Games to go on. But protests, demonstrations and even violence, still continue to happen because there is no better occasion than the Olympic Games to organise them. The government has promised security for the torch relay in New Delhi and let���s hope there are no disruptions on April 17.