It's not in every country that athletes make big money and are treated like
celebrities. In some countries they have to work very hard with little
resources, and have to compete with atheletes from countries that are trained
with sophisticated technology. I doubt the sports boycott on apartheid south
africa had much of an effect, there were always ways to get around it. Why
didn't the western countries impose more severe trade restrictions and
boycotts at that time? Who supplied their racist regime with arms and traded
with them?