[THE STORY OF THE 1980 OLYMPIC TEAM


In a folded chair outside of the capital, 110 kg weightlifter Bob Giordano just sat there; arms crossed and with a disgruntled look on his face. Bob watched as his Olympic teammates lined up to shake hands with President Carter and receive their con- gressional medals given to all Olympic participants; he couldn’t help but get a little emotionally stirred.


It was Carter’s decision that kept Giordano and his fellow Olym- pians from going to the Olympics. For many, it was their only chance to experience the Games.


“I was in Vegas when Carter announced his decision,” said James “Butch” Curry. “I was with my dad and I remember I could not sleep and I just drove all over Vegas.”


The event in Washington, D.C. in late July was intended to be a celebration and to honor the 1980 American Olympians for their service to their country. Over 450 U.S. Olympians received con- gressional medals that day. Giordano, as well as group of ath- letes, refused to accept theirs.


“I wouldn’t take mine,” said Giordano. “You don’t get medals for making an Olympic team.”


On Jan. 20, 1980, President Jimmy Carter presented the Soviet Union with an ultimatum: remove their troops from Afghani- stan or the U.S. would withdraw all of its athletes from the 1980 Games hosted in Moscow. The U.S.S.R. refused. As a result, over 500 American athletes and nearly 60 nations did not compete.


“To train for 10 to 12 years for a shot to go the Olympics – if you don’t make it you don’t make it and if you get hurt then you get hurt, but if someone tells you can’t go that’s a whole different story,” Giordano said.


“I knew [in my mind] I was going to make the ’80 team after I won the 1979 National Championships,” said Curry. “It was probably 5 minutes after I won the Olympic Trials that it hit me; that I knew I would not be able to compete in the Games.”


“You’re giving up everything, you don’t have a job, you don’t have any funding, it’s basically you eat sleep, train and that’s it,” said 1980 USAW Olympian Michael Cohen (82.5 kg weight class). “All of that pain and suffering and it comes down to a matter of a few months before the Games and you’re told that even if you make the team you’re not going.”


Giordano, Curry, Cohen and 12 other USAW Olympians never qualified for another Olympics. One American weightlifter, Guy Carlton, did, however, get that chance. After four years of wait- ing, Carlton won Bronze in Los Angeles. Regrettably, hundreds of athletes were not as fortunate as Carlton and they were never able to actually compete in the Games.


“I reached a point early on where I was like ‘No, this can’t be true,’” said 100 kg weightlifter Brian Derwin, who was one of 12


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who never made another Olympics. “Then I was really torqued off, but soon reached a point where I said ‘we better keep on moving and get through it.’ I didn’t wind up as traumatized as I think some people might have been.”


Immediately after Carter’s announcement, Giordano was one of the main Olympians to organize a response on behalf of the athletes. At the Olympic Training Center, Giordano and a small group of athletes quickly organized a press conference, howev- er, their efforts were not enough.


“We got up and gave a little presentation on behalf of the ath- letes and we got a lot of press,” Giordano said. “We only hoped it was enough to the American people to tell their representa- tives that we wanted to go to the Olympics. Obviously and un- fortunately, not enough people at the time put pressure on their representatives.”


Giordano and Curry were both part of a lawsuit along with 19 other athletes against the United States Olympic Committee. However, it was immediately dismissed in court.


“Carter threatened to hold our passports if we were to somehow go,” Giordano said. “A lot of us talked about leaving the coun- try and going to the Olympics from Europe if the International Olympic Committee would let us go.”


While Giordano and Curry were a voice for athletes opposed to the boycott, there were also a few Olympians that supported the U.S.’ move to boycott; Two of those voices were Giordano’s weightlifting teammates, Mike Karchut (82.5 kg weight class) and Michael Cohen.


Karchut in particular supported the boycott, because of his and his parents’ Eastern European background. He was raised by two Ukrainian parents and was born in Germany right after World War II, and Karchut held a lot of animosity toward the Soviet Union at the time.


“[My parents and I] knew what that country was like and what those people did, so ever since then, I’ve been an opponent of the Soviet Union,” Karchut said.


Karchut was also the only U.S. weightlifter on the 1980 team that had competed in a previous Olympics (1972). Since, he had al- ready made one Games, missing the 1980 Olympics was not as upsetting to him as it was for his other teammates.


“From my own personal standpoint, I was disappointed from the fact that these other guys couldn’t go,” Karchut said. “But in my particular case, this would have been my second Olympics and I supported [the boycott].”


Meanwhile, while Cohen was disappointed to not go to the Games, he also supported the move because he believed it was his obligation as a citizen to support the president’s decision.


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