Today in history On August 12, 1964 – South Africa is banned from the Olympic Games due to the country's racist policies.

In 1964, South Africa faced a historic sporting setback when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) banned the nation from competing in the Tokyo Olympic Games due to its apartheid policies. Apartheid, enforced by the South African government from 1948, was a legal system of racial segregation that denied Black South Africans political, social, and economic equality. This extended into sports, where teams were selected along racial lines, and Black athletes were often excluded from competing on equal terms with their white counterparts. The IOC had given South Africa repeated warnings to end racial discrimination in sport and to select Olympic teams without regard to race. However, the government’s refusal to dismantle apartheid in athletics led to its formal exclusion from the Games.

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The ban was not just a sports decision but a powerful political statement, reflecting the global outrage over South Africa’s racial policies. It marked the beginning of decades of isolation for the country in international sports, with the IOC maintaining the ban for 28 years until apartheid was dismantled and South Africa held its first democratic elections. During this period, South African athletes missed numerous Olympic opportunities, while the boycott movement against the country grew across the world in other sports like cricket and rugby. The 1964 Olympic ban became one of the most visible examples of how the sporting world used its influence to pressure governments into social and political change.

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