Apartheid South Africa and the Olympics

South Africa did not compete at Olympic Games from 1964 to 1988, as a part of the sporting boycott of South Africa during the apartheid era. The South African National Olympic Committee (NOC) was expelled from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1970. In 1991, as part of the transition to multiracial equality, a new NOC was formed and admitted to the IOC, and the country competed at the 1992 Summer Olympics.

All sport in South Africa under apartheid was segregated by race, with separate clubs and governing bodies. Only white bodies were affiliated to the South African Olympic and Empire [later Commonwealth] Games Association (SAOEGA, later SAOCGA) so only white South Africans competed at the Olympics. The IOC under Avery Brundage regarded this as an internal matter for South Africa, and, committed to keeping politics and sports separate, took no action. From 1948, black athletes and their federations complained to the IOC about their exclusion, but were told to take the matter up with the SAOCGA.

In the 1950s, NOCs from the Eastern Bloc led by the Soviet Union began to question this stance. With the decolonization of Africa from the late 1950s, NOCs from newly independent states opposed to apartheid began affiliating to the IOC. However, the IOC itself was not representative of NOCs but rather a group of co-opted individuals, still mostly from First World countries. On the other hand, the international federations (IFs), the governing bodies of the Olympic sports, were quicker to give a voice to newer members.

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