The Olympic Games originated in 776 B.C. in Olympia, a
small town in Greece. Participants in the first Olympiad are said to have run a
200-yard race, but as the Games were held every four years, they expanded in
scope. Only Greek amateurs were allowed to participate in this festival in honor
of the god Zeus. The event became a religious, patriotic, and athletic occasion
where winners were honored with wreaths and special privileges. There was a
profound change in the nature of the Games under the Roman emperors. They were
banned in 394 A. D. by Emperor Theodosius, after they became professional
circuses and carnivals. The modern Olympic Games began in Athens
in 1896 as a result of the initiative of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, a French
educator whose desire was to promote international understanding through
athletics. Nine nations participated in the first Games; over 100 nations
currently compete. The taint of politics and racial controversy,
however, has impinged upon the Olympic Games in our epoch. In 1936 Hitler, whose
country hosted the Games, affronted Jesse Owens, a black American runner, by
refusing to congratulate Owens for the feat of having won four gold medals. In
the 1972 Munich Games, the world was appalled by the deplorable murder of eleven
Israeli athletes by Arab terrorists. The next Olympic Games in Montreal were
boycotted by African nations. In 1980, following the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan, sixty-two nations caused great dismay to their athletes by refusing
to participate in the Games. The consensus among those nations was that their
refusal would admonish the Soviet. The purpose of those athletes whose countries boycotted the 1980 Games was to ______.