Goals of the Games

The mission of the Goodwill Games was to be an international, apolitical sports competition that would “facilitate more good will between the Soviets and us while de-politicizing Olympic-style sports competition.”1 The Goodwill Games movement began as a response to the American and Russian boycotts at the 1980 and 1984 Olympics, respectively. Sam McCullum, a representative of the 1990 Goodwill Games, reiterates this point in an interview, “[The boycotts] set people back because you had politics in sports, and people didn’t think it should matter.”2 This statement implies that the Goodwill Games were not political, unlike the Olympics. Advertising for the games also emphasized how the games were solely about “extending goodwill to the world community.”3 The 1990 Goodwill Games tried to distance themselves from the political atmosphere that created them.

For the full Sam McCullum Interview, click HERE.