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Britain's strong hope for a medal, Swimmer Adrian Moorhouse, said the withdrawals "touched me personally." His two keenest rivals in the breaststroke are Soviets. "Not for one moment do I feel any relief that the Russians might not be racing against me," Moorhouse, 19, said. "It must be heartbreaking to give up so much time, to sweat away in training and then be ordered not to compete just for political reasons."
This is a pang familiar to U.S. athletes, those without a place to play in 1980, particularly the ones unable to hold on another four years. "I was mad. I was bitter," remembered Chicago Runner Rosalyn Bryant, 28, whose best chance at a 400-meter medal may have evaporated with the Carter boycott. "But what can you do? The President is making the decision; he's somebody you never see. So you take it out on your family, on people you're around all of the time." Only 14 then, Gymnast Julianne McNamara could react to that boycott with youthful resilience, tell herself, "I'm an Olympian, and I'll always be," and sweat away another four years.
In some of the least glamorous sports, where many of the most dedicated athletes are found, the Communist bloc teams are an almost necessary standard. "The Russians have to be there," said the U.S. freestyle wrestling coach, Dan Gable. "If not, my wife can do the coaching." "This is the best judo team America ever had," said Eddie Liddie, a 126-pounder. "We've been working four long years, and we're ready to surprise some people, ready to win some medals. Now, when we do good, people will say that the Russians didn't come, the East Germans didn't come, they weren't the real Olympics."
On a recent tour, the judo team encountered the Soviets and a premonition. "Once you're together alone," Liddie said, "politics is out the door, and you trade pins and talk. We'd say, 'Are you going to L.A.?' and they'd say, 'Well, we're not sure.' Then one of the Cubans told one of our guys who spoke Spanish that Russia might have something [alternate games] in Bulgaria."
U.S. athletes have never been particularly enthusiastic Red-baiters. Innuendoes do fly like javelins over female village smithies who toss anvils for totalitarian states. In 1976, the last Summer Games attended by Americans, the U.S. women swimmers could have taken their thumping by East Germany more gracefully. Some muttered that the Germans' particular star, Kornelia Ender, resembled a man, though she did not look like a man to men, certainly not to Roland Mathes, who married her. He was the G.D.R.'s top male swimmer, and a friendship between Mathes and John Naber, the best American, was evident. "We were on a similar quest," Naber said. "The thing that makes friends is a shared experience. The best of that is a mutual respect."