[Jesse Joe]

Lori Ewing
The Canadian Press

TORONTO
When Canada decided to boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics, Jay Triano couldn't fathom the thought of another four years spent sweating in the gym to get back to the Games.
So he returned to Simon Fraser University -- to play football.
Triano, now an assistant coach with the Toronto Raptors, and Leo Rautins, Canada's national men's coach and a Raptors TV analyst, were both members of the Olympic men's team that never made it to Moscow.
The decision to stay home became a defining moment in their careers. Rautins would never play in an Olympics. Triano lost interest in basketball for a while.
Now, amid rumblings about boycotts of this summer's Beijing Olympics, both say they believe skipping Moscow may have been the wrong call.
"It served no purpose,'' Rautins said. "In my opinion, it accomplished nothing. The athletes basically became the pawns and it really didn't do anything. Everything we did for four years was to gear up for that, and then all of a sudden it was gone.''
Recent bloodshed in Tibet has human rights activists and some politicians calling for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics.
Pro-Tibetan activists held a rally on Parliament Hill demanding a Canadian boycott, although Canadian Olympic Committee officials have said they're not considering it.
The Belgian government, though, has said it wouldn't rule out a boycott, while French president Nicolas Sarkozy suggested boycotting the opening ceremonies was a possibility.
In 1980, U.S. President Jimmy Carter led calls for an international boycott of the Moscow Games to protest the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. Canada's then-Liberal government supported Carter along with the opposition Conservatives, and on April 23, then-external affairs minister Mark McGuigan told the House of Commons that Canada would not participate in the Games.
"We were at the qualifying tournament in Puerto Rico when we started hearing about the different rumblings,'' Triano said. "I think it was right before our final game, and we had already secured a spot (for the Olympics), when we heard there was a good chance we would not be going.
"The thing that bothered me is . . . the Afghanistan athletes (11 of them) went to the Olympics in Moscow,'' Triano added. "We thought what (the Russians) were doing was wrong, but the country they were doing it to didn't think it was wrong enough not to send their athletes to the Games.''
Men's basketball, coached by the late Jack Donohue, was the only Canadian team that qualified for Moscow. When the Canadians pulled out, Brazil was bumped up to take their spot.
"By many accounts, that might have been one of the best teams Canada's ever had, so we were pretty optimistic that we could win a medal,'' Rautins said.
"We peaked at the right time, we had gone to Puerto Rico for the Olympic qualifying tournament, got on a little bit of a roll,'' Triano said. "Who knows what would have happened? We definitely had something pretty special at the time.''
Instead of battling for a medal in Moscow, the Canadians were flown to Toronto and put up at the Royal York Hotel for two days. They were feted with a dinner, offered tickets to a hockey game and attended a concert in their honour featuring Gordon Lightfoot and Harry Chapin.
Small consolation