Boycotts and Broken Dreams: The Story of the 1986 Commonwealth Games

In 1986, Edinburgh hosted the Commonwealth Games for a second time. There were sporting triumphs from athletes who were to become household names such as Steve Cram, Daley Thompson, Tessa Sanderson and Scotland's own, Liz McColgan, winner of the 10,000m gold medal. But these were Games when sport locked horns with politics over the issue of sanctions against the brutal apartheid regime in South Africa. The boycott of more than half the Commonwealth nations brought the Games to its knees. The drama which unfolded placed Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the Queen and flamboyant newspaper mogul Robert Maxwell centre stage in a story that attracted worldwide attention.