Diplomatic Controversies
Montreal 1976 faced two diplomatic controversies, both of which impacted on the Olympic Games itself and on diplomatic relations and international sport.
One revolved around a boycott by 22 African countries, protesting the New Zealand rugby team's tour of Apartheid South Africa, coupled with New Zealand's participation in the Olympic Games. The other controversy centred around recognition of Chinese Taipei.
South Africa had been banned from the Olympic Games since 1964 because of its race segregation regime known as apartheid.
In 1976, New Zealand’s national rugby team, the All Blacks, embarked on a three-month, 24-match tour of South Africa just two weeks before the Olympic Games Montreal 1976 began. In response, 22 African countries withdrew on the eve of the Games’ Opening Ceremony, with Guyana, Iraq, and a further eight African nations joining the boycott in the days that followed.
A year later, the Gleneagles Declaration called on all Commonwealth member states to discourage all sporting contact with South Africa and, in December 1977, the UN adopted and proclaimed the International Declaration against Apartheid in Sports.
The sporting sanctions against South Africa came in the wake of a broad agreement within the international community to take political measures against the South African government, backed by the United Nations. The exclusion of the South African NOC was decided as part of this broad agreement and based on the fact that apartheid was also practised in South African sport.
South Africa was excluded from the wider sporting world until the early 1990s, when its apartheid laws were finally repealed. The country returned to the Olympic Games in 1992.
Chinese Taipei pulled out of Montreal 1976 the day before the Opening Ceremony, following the Canadian government’s refusal to recognise it under the name of Republic of China. This was despite the fact that Chinese Taipei had been a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for 16 years. The dispute can be traced back to October 1970, when Canada became one of the first Western nations to recognise the People’s Republic of China, at which point it suspended diplomatic relations with Chinese Taipei. Though the IOC attempted to broker a compromise, Canada would not allow Chinese Taipei athletes to compete under the name and flag of Republic of China.
A long-term solution to the issue of Chinese Taipei’s denomination at the Olympic Games was found in 1979, when the IOC brokered an agreement known as the Nagoya Resolution, allowing Chinese Taipei to compete at the Olympic Games under this name. It returned to the Olympic fold at Los Angeles 1984, when the People’s Republic of China also sent a team to the Games for the first time since it was recognised by the IOC in 1954.