Sports boycott: keeping the peace or breaking it?
Wang Xiaohui(a*)- Liu Guihai (b)

a) A teacher of Tongji University, No.1239,Siping Rd. Shanghai, China.
*420343395[at]qq.com
b) A professor of school of physical education and health, East China Normal University, No.500 Dongchuan Rd. Shanghai, China.

Abstract

Sports promotes peace, which is the political significance endowed by human beings to sports. Many scholars have carried out a series of related researches on sports to promote peace, but they only keep silent on sports boycott, and even regard it as a symbol of destroying the ideal of peace in the Olympic Games and the politicization of sports. The issue surrounding the sports boycott has always been kept silent, and it is regarded as a violation of the Olympic Charter. Is that really the case? This study starts with the concept of sports boycott and uses literature review method, comparative analysis method and case study method to analyze all sports boycott related events since 1896. It finds that: firstly, sports boycott has important political and ethical significance in the field of maintaining peace and justice- secondly, sports boycott is a double-edged sword, not only a tool for maintaining world peace, but also a political strategy for one country to isolate other countries in national struggles weapons- and thirdly, the IOC has different political attitudes towards the subjects of different sports boycotts, and does not maintain absolute neutrality.

Keywords: sports boycott- sport for peace- IOC- politics

Topic: Sport, international relations, and diplomacy