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Title: Sports in the Political Arena
Review: While the bulk of history on the 1980 Summer Games is the United States boycott due to the Soviet Union's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan, author Baruch A. Hazan explores an important - but oftentimes rarely mentioned angle - the merging of politics into athletics to deliver a loud and controlled message on the world stage.Moscow 1980, Hazan writes, was an excellent example of sport and politics being connected and that such major international competitions is politics being played out in athletic arenas.Perhaps the watershed moment of politics and athletics was in the pole vault, when Poland's Wladyslaw Kozakiewicz gave what became known as "Kozakiewicz's gesture" to Soviet fans who were vociferously booing his efforts, which yielded a gold medal and world record.Hazan adds a well-researched voice to the history of the Olympic Games that are played in a decathlon of politics and ideologies.
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