Rolando Blackman, a former NBA All-Star, skipped the 1980s Olympics in Moscow because of political reasons
While it has won several gold medals in the history, former Dallas Mavericks guard Rolando Blackman will never forget 1980. That was the year he boycotted the Olympics in Moscow for political reasons.
He instead chose to protest the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. Blackman reflected on the moment in an interview with “I’m still highly disappointed in the decisions that were made to use us to do something to fight a political battle,” Blackman told Mavs.com. “Of course I’m disappointed in that, because you get up there and you liked to have been inside of the competition, because we had a great team.
Blackman later became the No. 9 pick in the 1981 NBA draft. He was a four-time All-Star before the Mavs retired his No. 22 jersey. He finished with 17,623 points.“This is one of the highest honors that I’ve earned,” Blackman said. “I went out there with 80 people and made the Olympic team, and two weeks later I worked my tail off to be one of the starters on the 1980 Olympic basketball team. Political situations can do what it did, but we’re still Olympians because we made that team.
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