BOYCOTT GAMES: 1980 U.S. team finds overdue recognition
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) -- There were 474 U.S. athletes primed to take their talents to the Moscow Olympics in 1980. The U.S. government put an end to those plans when it called for a boycott of the games.
Of those 474 athletes, 227 would never get another chance at Olympic glory. All the athletes’ names, and their story, are enshrined at the recently opened U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Museum.
On the 40th anniversary of the boycott, many consider it a small, overdue and fittingly timed tribute to a group of athletes who never got their due.