A pártállam árnyékában
In the shadow of the one-party state

Friendship Games instead of the capitalist Olympic Games.

Summary/Abstract: With the goal of promoting peace, the modern Olympic movement was born on the eve of the 20th century, burdened with political and ideological tensions, therefore international conflicts have always had an effect on the summer Olympics. After World War II, despite the fact that the world had become bipolar, sports could continue to surmount the political, social and ideological differences between countries for some time. But in the 1980s, the conflict between the Soviet Union and the USA became so intense that the Olympic Games became the theatre of waging international conflicts with political leaders resorting to the means of boycott. The group of participants was not complete either at the 1980 summer Olympics in Moscow, or in Los Angeles in 1984. In compensation, the athletes of the Socialist countries boycotting the 1984 Summer Olympics could participate in the A-category Friendship Games in the summer of 1984. Staying away from the Olympic Games, however, deeply wounded everybody, and the “surrogate Olympics” provided opportunity for abuse. Even though the Olympics became victim of power politics in the 1980s, it managed to rise renewed from its ashes as the leaders of the biggest powers of the world realized that they need to resolve their political conflicts elsewhere. In 1989-1990, the transformation of world order and the series of regime changes provided a new framework and new possibilities for managing international sport relations.

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