“I’m just an athlete and that’s all,” said United States cyclist Lance Armstrong.

Lance, I think you’re mistaken.

While preparing for the Catalan Week race in Madrid Armstrong expressed concern about the safety of his U.S. Postal Service-sponsored team during the Tour de France this summer if the United States is still at war with Iraq.

“Two hundred kilometers of road without barriers cannot be kept under control,” Armstrong said. “I don’t represent one side or the other, but I do represent a sponsor.”

Whether or not Armstrong publicizes his political stance, he is right in saying that he represents a sponsor of the war in Iraq, which makes it impossible for him to be “just an athlete.”

The Olympic Games are more than just world-class athletic competitions. They represent a peaceful gathering of nations in celebration of athletics and camaraderie. But in recent decades, the threat of violence has not been absent from the Olympic competition or other international athletic events.

Today, sports are no longer a neutral ground that is immune to the pervasiveness of political issues. It wasn’t always this way. In ancient Greece during the first Olympiads, wars were suspended and armies were prohibited from attacking during competitions. Temporary truces were created to allow athletes and spectators to travel and participate in the games safely.

Thirty-one years ago this summer, the world received a startling and violent wake-up call with the tragic murders of 11 Israeli athletes and a coach at the Olympic Village during the games. Political and religious conflicts shattered the spirit of friendly international athletic competition on Sept. 5, 1972, when eight gunmen affiliated with the Palestinian guerrilla group Black September shot and killed an Israeli athlete and coach. Nine other Israeli athletes were taken hostage and were later killed in an open fire between West German police and the terrorists.

The gunmen didn’t take the athletes hostage because they wanted to disrupt the Olympics or keep the athletes from participating in the games. They wanted to make a statement, demanding the release of 200 Arab guerrillas being held in Israeli jails. The Olympic Games was simply their stage to make their political statement, and the world was their audience.

The athletes weren’t killed because of the sport they played, they were killed because they were Israelis, and they weren’t protected from political violence simply because they were athletes.

Every time an athlete enters an arena or takes the field for competition, he or she wears his or her national colors and becomes an international representative of that nation. Our athletes parade around the opening ceremony of the Olympics waving American flags and wearing cowboy hats. They are a representation of Americans and America: graceful, proud and strong. As fans, we embrace our athletes with an immense sense of pride. We adorn ourselves in red, white and blue, and we weep with pride at the sight of the American flag being raised in a stadium full of cheering fans.

The massacre in Munich is sobering proof that athletes are no longer just representatives of national pride, but can easily be targets of politically motivated hostility. In international competition, athletes become the faces of nations and the embodiment of what a nation stands for, regardless of the athlete’s individual political beliefs.

To say that an athlete at the international level is removed from political conflict is foolish. We take pride in our athletes in international competition. To say that they are not representatives of our country is ludicrous.

Mr. Armstrong, you are not “just an athlete.” You are much, much more–whatever the consequences of that might be.