Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher today snubbed five Olympic gold-medal winners who defied her request to boycott the Moscow Games by deciding not to recommend that they be given awards in Queen Elizabeth's New Year's Honors List.
''The Government advised them not to go for very, very good reasons,'' said Mrs. Thatcher, who supported President Carter's decision to boycott the Olympics because of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.
She added: ''We felt very strongly indeed that to go to the Olympics, which is an ideal, would be used by Moscow to indicate that the rest of the world approved of her policies. We took a very firm line. We could not possibly go back on our advice, which was totally and utterly right.''
The gold medalists were the sprinter Alan Wells, two middledistance runners, Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett, a decathlon athlete, Daley Thompson, and the swimmer Duncan Goodhew.
Source: New York Times
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