Central Powers

Following the devastation of World War I, the countries competing in the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium, weren’t too keen on inviting those responsible for sparking the bloody global conflict. With the 1920 Games being the first Olympics to be held since they were postponed in 1916 on account of WWI, the countries that comprised the Central Empire—Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire—were banned from sending their athletes to Antwerp.

However, the Germans wouldn’t be deterred from hosting their own athletic competition, as the country created its own sporting contest in 1922. Dubbed the German Combat Games, the national multi-sport event occurred in both summer and winter. It lasted until 1937—nearly an entire decade after Germany was eventually invited back to the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam.

Germany and Japan

The 1948 Olympics were the first to see both winter and summer events in Switzerland and London, respectively, and the first Olympics to be held in twelve years due to World War II. Similar to how the Olympics addressed the involvement of the instigating countries from WWI in 1920, Germany and Japan were banned from the competition in 1948.

Even without Germany and Japan in London—where Bulgaria was also banned from competing—rationing due to the war still caused the two countries’ presence to be felt. The budget for the London Games was so tight, in fact, that most of the events were held at a single stadium because they couldn’t afford to build new venues, with most athletes housed around the stadium instead of the usual Olympic Village.

However, the ban would eventually be lifted as Germany, Japan, and Bulgaria returned to join the 69 nations competing at the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo, Norway.

South Africa

One of the most prolific instances of a country being banned from the Olympics is undoubtedly that of South Africa. In their denouncing of Apartheid—a system of institutionalized racism that enabled the country’s minority white population to have complete social, economic, and political control for over forty years—the International Olympic Committee barred South Africa from competing in more than a dozen summer and winter Olympics.

From 1964 to 1988, South Africa was banned from the Games, marking a nearly twenty-year-long absence that kept South African athletes from competing at the 1964 Games in Tokyo as well as 1968 Mexico, 1972 Munich, 1976 Montreal, 1980 Moscow, 1984 Los Angles, and 1988 Seoul.

When South Africa did return following the dissolution of Apartheid in 1992, 93 South African Olympians competed at the Games in Barcelona that same year, with Elana Meyer joining Wayne Ferreira and Piet Norval as the country’s sole medalists

Zimbabwe( Formerly Rdodesia)

When most people remember the 1972 Olympics in Munich, it’s difficult to look past the deaths of Israeli athletes and a West German police officer at the hands of Palestinian militants in what has since become known as the Munich massacre.

That being said, the Munich Games were also where the IOC enacted its last-minute ban on Rhodesia, known today as Zimbabwe. Just four days before the 1972 summer Olympics were scheduled to commence, the IOC withdrew its invitation to Rhodesia following political pressure from Kenya, Ethiopia, and other African nations that considered Rhodesia an illegal regime.

As a result, the 44 athletes Rhodesia had sent to Munich were only allowed to experience the Games from the stands. Rhodesia would not return to the Olympics until 1980, when its racially discriminant government had collapsed, and the country adopted its new identity as Zimbabwe

USA and Canada

Although not banned from the Games by the organizing committee themselves, the United States and Canada boycotted the 1980 summer Olympics in Moscow by refusing to attend. The North American nations refused to compete to shine a light on the violations of human rights by the Soviets’ invasion of Afghanistan.

While the idea wasn’t taken up by other member governments in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the support for the proposed boycott by Andrei Sakharov—a Soviet nuclear scientist and dissenter—helped it gain popularity. Sakharov’s appeal was soon backed by the United States in January 1980, with the Carter Administration including a boycott of the Moscow Games as part of the consequences if the Soviet Union failed to leave Afghanistan by February of that same year.

Joe Clark, the Prime Minister of Canada at the time, echoed the sentiments of his continental neighbor. With the Soviets remaining firm, however, neither North American nation attended the Games that year. And so it’s easy to see why soon after, the Carter administration tried to prevent future politicization of the Games’ hosting by proposing that Greece be the permanent home of the Olympics. Yet, in the spirit of keeping the international competition as far-reaching as possible, the IOC declined.