April 15 (Bloomberg) -- The next time some politician or activist suggests an Olympic boycott I want you to think of Craig Beardsley. And then tell me that countries suddenly outraged at China's record on human rights shouldn't send their athletes to Beijing. You probably don't recognize the name Craig Beardsley. Unlike swimmers Mark Spitz or Michael Phelps, Beardsley never got his Olympic chance to win hearts and minds. ``I was really breaking through,'' Beardsley said during a recent hour-long telephone conversation. ``The timing was right in 1980.'' Physically, yes. Geopolitically, no. The Russians were in Afghanistan, prompting the U.S. to pull out of competition. Beardsley remembers having pizza with friends when told of President Jimmy Carter's decision to boycott the Summer Games in Moscow. ``Even then, we were thinking, `what good does a boycott really do?'' he said. Sports fans should know what the Beardsley family sacrificed for a chance to represent the U.S. Beardsley at age 4 learned to swim at the 92nd Street Y on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. He attended the United Nations International School, where one of his classmates was an Afghani prince. ``It was like a mini U.N.,'' Beardsley said. ``At a very early age we recognized we're not just one little island on this planet.''
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Diplomacy runs in the Beardsley family. His grandfather was consul-general for the
