What the 1976 Montreal Games still mean to athletes who boycotted them

Fifty years after the Montreal Olympics, athletes who withdrew from the 1976 Games say the boycott remains a defining moment in their careers and in the fight against apartheid. Nigerian sprinter Gloria Obajimi was already in the Olympic Village and preparing for her first Games when Nigeria announced it was joining the boycott. Her team left Montreal in tears after the IOC refused to remove New Zealand, whose rugby team had toured apartheid South Africa earlier that year. Obajimi says the experience was painful, but she still views it as part of a wider struggle that helped pressure South Africa’s racial system. Tanzania’s Filbert Bayi also pulled out after months of tension over New Zealand’s participation. A muchanticipated middledistance race between Bayi and New Zealand’s John Walker never happened, becoming one of the biggest absences of the Montreal Games. Bayi says the African nations accepted the boycott as a stand against cooperation with apartheid South Africa. As Montreal marks the 50th anniversary of the only Summer Olympics held in Canada, the boycotting athletes remember the event as both a personal loss and a political act with lasting meaning.