It's a wonder that the certificate sent to Colin Simonds after his Olympic sailing ambitions had been thwarted by a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games is still in one piece.

Given the frustration that he and his fellow would-be Olympians felt then, and still feel now, about the Royal Yachting Association's decision to accede to the request of Mrs Thatcher's Government without any consultation with its athletes, you might have expected it to have been screwed up into a little ball and thrown away, or perhaps ceremonially ignited on the steps of the RYA headquarters.

Pictures of this bathetic item were circulated recently as an accompanying illustration to the heartfelt pleas by Simonds and the other sailors whose prospects of taking part in the Moscow Games were destroyed that the RYA do more to compensate them and, crucially, agree never to impose such a unilateral boycott again.

As Simonds acidly points out, when US athletes were obliged to boycott the Moscow Games in response the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, they were all in the same boat, as it were.

"The USA were all given congressional medals of honour at the White House," Simonds said. "We got a printed scroll – by post."


The wording of the scroll, signed by Prince Philip, then the RYA President, is timelessly pointless: "This is to certify that Colin Simonds , the winner of the Soling Class, would have been selected for the Royal Yachting Association Olympic Yachting Team 1980."Cold comfort indeed – especially for those members of the team who defeated returning Olympic champions soon afterwards to earn gold in the European Championships.

For all the efforts of Simonds and Co, the RYA felt unable to offer them the guarantee they sought. They also felt that an invitation to take part in the Torch Ceremony fell rather short of the promise they say was made to them by the RYA in 2008 that they would be involved in the Olympic Opening Ceremony.

As far as Simonds and his fellow phantoms of the Moscow Games are concerned, the conversation with their governing body has not yet been concluded, with their cause being maintained via the following address:[email protected]


The RYA were joined in their position by three other sports before the Games – shooting, equestrianism and hockey – as 14 other sports agreed to go to Moscow. The boycott hit particularly hard on the hockey players, many of whom had been deeply disappointed four years earlier when, despite being the official reserve nation for the event, they were not called up when Kenya withdrew from the Montreal Games. Moscow would also have been the first Games for the GB women in the inaugural female tournament.

Speaking recently to the rower Chris Davidge, who competed at the 1952, 1956 and 1960 Olympics before going on to be the Team GB Chef de Mission in Montreal,  I got an insight into the political pressures which distorted attitudes to Olympic participation in 1976, and four years later.

Davidge might well have played a small but significant part in precipitating the late withdrawal of Kenya from the Montreal Olympics, who boycotted the Games along with 16 other African nations in protest at the participation of New Zealand, whose rugby players had competed against the then apartheid South Africa.

Speaking in the library of his elegant Georgian house at Little Houghton, Davidge - a lawyer, and former High Sheriff of Northamptonshire - recalled how the New Zealand Chef de Mission had come to him for advice in the days preceding the Opening Ceremony in Montreal.

"I said: 'You do not under any circumstances agree to withdraw. Rugby football is not part of the Olympic Games. Therefore there is no reason whatsoever why the Olympic team should be crucified, as it were. You stand firm.'"

New Zealand did stand firm – something for which John Walker, who won the 1500 metres gold, was particularly grateful.

By the time Mrs Thatcher's Government was seeking to bolster Britain's "special relationship" with the United States by using British Olympians as a political weapon against the Soviets, Davidge, as president of the Amateur Rowing Association, was given a mandate by his Council to stand up for rowers wishing to attend the Games.

He was summoned to the Foreign Office to account for himself and his sport to the then Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington. Shortly before he did so Carrington's Parliamentary Private Secretary, Douglas Hurd – with whom Davidge had been at Eton – came into the waiting room for an informal chat.

"I said 'I hope I'm not going to get into too much hot water, but I'm not complying,'" Davidge recalled. "I put my case to him and he said 'Good luck, have a go.'

"Anyway, I was duly ushered in to see the Foreign Secretary. My case was quite simply this: 'If you, the British Government, will stop trading with Russia, we will support you. But we, as sportsmen, are not prepared to be used as the whip for protest.'

"He was very gentlemanly about it. He said 'I quite understand your position. But we must agree to disagree.'

"It was a meeting I shall never forget. Because they were trying to pick us off sport-by-sport, and we were an obvious first target."

How sad for Simonds and Co that they had no one such as Davidge to plead their cause in those uncertain days of political manoeuvring. At least now they seem to be making significant waves as they act in concerted fashion. So watch this space.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, and has covered the past five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames. Rowbottom's Twitter feed can be accessed here.