In the unseasonable cold of the spring of 1980, there was an impromptu meeting of oarsmen at the back of the Boat House in Hammersmith. We were there to debate the Amateur Rowing Association's decision to boycott the Moscow Olympics in protest at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. We were annoyed that, under pressure from Margaret Thatcher's Government, it had adopted such a stance without consulting us. As a result of this gathering we got together with other athletes and a handful of us, including Seb Coe and Duncan Goodhew, worked to ensure that our voices were heard.

We finally persuaded some of the governing bodies to change their minds and support the British Olympic Association's decision to send a team. It was not easy: I was called into the Foreign Office to be carpeted by Douglas Hurd; we received a daily postbag of diatribes; and a senior Tory party official told me that any aspirations of a political career might as well be forgotten if I set foot in Moscow.

In 1980 and in 1984 at Los Angeles, the Cold War was played out on the Olympic stage - but to little effect. The Soviet Union was not persuaded to change its policies. Despite many countries boycotting the Games, it would be another nine years before the last Russian troops retreated from Afghanistan.

The case at the time was clear to my team-mates and me. Despite the horrors of the Soviet invasion, it was wrong for the Government to ask sportsmen and women to make the sole sacrifice. Trade continued between the Soviet Union and the West; diplomatic relations stayed intact; cultural exchanges were unaffected; and anyone could walk down Piccadilly and buy a ticket on Aeroflot and spend their summer holiday in Leningrad. Only the athletes were being targeted and only the athletes would suffer.

Between now and August, calls for a boycott of the Games in Beijing will echo around the world to show revulsion at China's support of the Sudanese regime, its disregard for human rights, and its occupation of Tibet. But the heart of the issue is whether the cause of human rights is best served by isolating China or by critical engagement.

As Chairman of the British Olympic Association I will listen carefully to the arguments of those who favour a boycott. Holding the Games in China without any improvement in the situation is, they say, against the spirit of the Olympic ideals; it cheapens the Olympic movement and proves that money trumps morality. With no boycott, these voices conclude, the Chinese will be rewarded with a propaganda coup at the expense of the Olympic movement and fundamental human values.

But there is a counter-argument. I would argue that the high media profile of the Olympics will ensure that the spotlight of international attention shines brightly on Beijing and this spotlight, in time, will bring dividends; that sport and the Olympics are a force for good in themselves; that engagement is preferable to isolation; that humiliating China is unlikely to achieve anything and would ultimately prove counterproductive.

By raising awareness of the situation in China, the Games are already exerting pressure for change. It is precisely because the Chinese have invested so much in the hosting of the Olympic Games that we have any leverage at all on human rights. That's part of the reason why Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights in China have not called for a boycott.

Sports boycotts have a patchy record at best. The sporting boycott of South Africa was a success because it was only one of a wide number of diplomatic pressure points, such as economic sanctions, applied to the South African regime by a united international community. Even so, the dismantling of apartheid took three decades to achieve.

The example of South Africa in no way mirrors the situation in China today. The international community's relationship with China is by and large a warm one; a boycott would be the source of bitter division. There are no economic or political sanctions - a boycott of the Beijing Games is the sporting equivalent of a UN sanction imposed on China; something that no leading Western government has any intention of proposing. Chinese sportsmen and women do not face boycotts in other events; no one, for instance, is calling for a boycott of the Shanghai Grand Prix.

To use the Olympics as a one-off gesture of condemnation serves no useful purpose. Athletes should neither be asked nor expected to solve a problem to which the governments of the world have yet to find an answer.

So my deep-rooted conviction remains that athletes should compete in Beijing and I will fight for that right on their behalf. In sport we can set the example of engaging, not isolating. The athletes should look up at the Olympic flame and be proud that, through its strength, there is a real chance for change in the world's most populous country. That flame is undoubtedly shining into the recesses of China.

Ironically, the greatest challenge may come when the flame is extinguished on August 24. Many human rights campaigners will wish that the Olympic Games were an annual event; and that the permanent site was Beijing.

Lord Moynihan, chairman of the British Olympic Association, won a silver medal in the Moscow Games

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