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I don't know if prior to 1914, in the cold war of its time between Germany and Britain if the olympics were used in a sense as a bloodless for the most part cold war!
There was certainly a very strong element of this when the Soviet block nations and satelite nations competed against Western Nations post WW2. I think The USSR started to compete in 1952! And of course GDR pharmacologists became infamous, most went to the PRC following the fall of the wall.
Would the cold war in reality have been worse with no olympic outlet to dissipate it?
Yes there would still be a world ice hockey championships and a FIBA World championship and a soccer World cup etc and the World Athletics Championships would have stated still as late as 1983. Even A world chess tournament. But no olympics, no gathering of the worlds' youth so to speak to do battle!
Could there have been a frienship games? AFAIK there was a sort of!
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