Rhodesia Rhodesia Rhodesia (, ) was an unrecognised state in southern Africa from 1965 to 1979, equivalent in territory to modern Zimbabwe. Rhodesia was the "de facto" successor state to the British colony of Southern Rhodesia, which had been self-governing since achieving responsible government in 1923. A landlocked nation, Rhodesia was bordered by South Africa to the south, Bechuanaland (later Botswana) to the southwest, Zambia to the northwest, and Mozambique (a Portuguese province until 1975) to the east. In the late 19th century, the territory north of the Transvaal was chartered to the British South Africa Company, led by Cecil Rhodes.
Rhodesia at the Olympics prove Rhodesia's racial discrimination in sport in order to use it to bar the National Olympic Committee permanently from the Games. Based on the evidence the organization was able to uncover, in 1975 the IOC voted 41–26 to expel Rhodesia from the Games on a permanent basis. The nation would not return to the Games until 1980, after the white-dominated government had fallen and the country had been renamed Zimbabwe. Rhodesia was still able to compete at the Paralympics in 1968 and 1972, as it had in 1960 and 1964, due to "deliberate decisions by politicians who were unwilling (for