TAKING A STAND

Three other moments when the Olympics were used as a platform to highlight injustice

THE BLACK POWER SALUTE, MEXICO / 1968

As Tommie Smith and John Carlos received their medals for the 200m in Mexico

City, the pair took a defiant stance. Wearing black gloves, the African-Americans raised their fists in the Black Power salute to express their disdain towards the inequality they faced at home during the civil rights movement. They were expelled from the Games, but 40 years later, there were no regrets. ‘It was a cry for freedom and for human rights,’ Smith said in 2008. ‘We had to be seen because we couldn’t be heard.’

THE SOVIET FLAG SNUB, MEXICO / 1968

At the same Games, Czech gymnast Vera Cáslavská made her own statement. When she took to the podium with Soviet gymnast Larisa Petrik, she turned away as the Soviet flag was raised. It was her way of standing against the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia two months prior to the Games. Her protest made her an outcast in her own country while it was under Soviet rule. But when the Communist government was ousted in 1989, she found favour again, and later became the President of the Czech National Olympic Committee.

THE AFRICAN BOYCOTT, MONTREAL / 1976

In the summer of 1976, South African police murdered hundreds of anti-apartheid protestors in the Soweto uprising. In the same period, the New Zealand national rugby team toured South Africa, a move seen as a tacit approval of the apartheid regime. South Africa had been banned from the Games since 1964, but 28 African countries boycotted when the IOC refused to exclude New Zealand in 1976. The move raised awareness of the anti-apartheid movement which New Zealand would later support.