Let the Games begin: Olympics tries to outrun its political shadowhttps://en.majalla.com/node/321609/documents-memoirs/let-games-begin-olympics-tries-outrun-its-political-shadow
Let the Games begin: Olympics tries to outrun its political shadow
For over a century, states’ disagreements in other areas have spilled over into the world’s highest profile sports arena, with boycotts and counter-boycotts. Al Majalla reviews a chequered history.
EPU/AFP
The French delegation attends the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Mexico City on 12 October 1968. Days earlier, hundreds of Mexican students had been shot and killed.
Let the Games begin: Olympics tries to outrun its political shadow
After a 100-year wait, the Summer Olympics are returning to Paris once again. It is the third time that the French capital has hosted the Games, doing so in 1900 and 1924.
Politically and domestically, they are timely: the occasion and distraction will provide be a much-needed boost for struggling French President Emanuel Macron.
On the whole, the guardians of world sport aim to keep politics out, yet things seldom work out that way.
Russia and Belarus remain banned from participating. This was imposed after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, with Belarussian help.
Although Russian and Belarussian athletes can still take part as independents, some have been excluded after vetting.
Two-time Russian Olympic champion wrestler Abdulrashid Sadulaev, for instance, has been disqualified after he was found to have expressed strong and ongoing support for Russia’s invasion.
Politics and sport
Some accuse the International Olympic Committee (IOC) of double standards, banning Russia and Belarus while allowing Israel to participate.
There have also been calls for the IOC to consider China’s participation, following reporting of the oppression of the country’s Uyghur Muslim minority.
Two-time Russian Olympic champion wrestler Abdulrashid Sadulaev is disqualified for expressing strong and ongoing support for Russia's invasion.
Al Majalla was born just a few weeks before the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. One of our first features was a four-page treatise by Lebanese writer Iyad Abu Shakra on how politics gets in the way of the sports at the Olympics.
Led by the United States in the final years of the Cold War, 60 nations boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Although the Games would be hosted in the Russian resort of Sochi in 2014, they would never again be held in the Russian capital.
A giant image of Misha, the Russian bear Olympic mascot, created by 3500 card-bearers is deployed in the stands at the Lenin Central Stadium during the ceremony opening the Moscow 1980 Summer Olympic Games, in Moscow.
Ahead of the Paris Olympics this year, we take a look back at how politics, propaganda, and even terrorism have got in the way of friendship, athleticism, and fair play.
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1920, Antwerp
These were the first Games to be held after the First World War, so the 1920 Olympics in Belgium were perhaps always going to be heavily politicised.
Indeed, all defeated countries were banned from participating, including Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire. The newly formed Soviet Union (USSR) was invited but did not attend.
1936, Berlin
The most infamous year in Olympic history. Adolf Hitler had been elected German leader three years earlier, and his state-sponsored persecution of minorities had already begun.
He used the Games as a giant stage for spreading Nazi propaganda, filming them and broadcast it live on radio to 41 countries around the world.
Although many nations threatened to boycott the event, 49 of them ended up participating, including the United States.
Delegations march through a new 100,000-seat stadium in Berlin as the crowd gives the Nazi salute during the opening ceremony of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.
Hitler agreed to allow some Jewish athletes to take part, including Helene Mayer in the women's fencing, as he wanted to outshine the 1932 Games held in Los Angeles.
It was in Berlin that a young Lebanese international referee, Pierre Gemayel, was so inspired by the Nazis' order and discipline that he returned home to establish the Lebanese Phalange, an all-Maronite party that played a crucial role in the country's civil war and remains active today.
1948, London
The first Olympics after World War II, and the first to be televised, the Games were attended by King George VI. The Games were boycotted by the USSR, while no invitation was sent to the defeated nations, Japan and Germany.
The newly formed State of Israel, announced in May 1948, was also denied admittance, because it had not yet received official recognition from the IOC.
Still recovering from the war, the British government applied strict austerity measures, built no new venue, and hosted most at it at Wembley Stadium.
Sports delegation parade during the opening ceremony of the London 1948 Summer Olympic Games, on July 26, 1948 at Wembley Stadium in London.
Marie Provaznikova, president of the Czechoslovakian Gymnastics Federation, refused to return home after the Games, citing a lack of freedoms in her country, which had formally joined the Soviet Bloc earlier that year.
1952, Helsinki
This marked the first participation in the Olympics for the Soviet Union, Israel, China, and Thailand.
Western media framed the Games as a competition between Communist countries and the free world. The USSR won 71 medals, second only to the US.
1956, Melbourne
China boycotted these Games because the IOC invited Taiwan, while Egypt, Lebanon, and Iraq boycotted the Games in protest over the Suez War that broke out in response to Gamal Abdul Nasser's nationalisation of the Suez Canal.
Adolf Hitler used the 1936 Berlin Games as a giant stage for spreading Nazi propaganda, broadcasting them live to 41 countries.
The Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland also stayed home in protest at the Soviet invasion of Hungary, suppressing a revolt that had occurred a few weeks earlier.
When the USSR played Hungary in a polo event, violence broke out between the two sets of players, after a Soviet athlete punched a Hungarian counterpart.
The match was duly cancelled, with Hungary declared the winner, because it was winning when it had to be abandoned.
1964, Tokyo
Just as Germany had used the 1936 Games to promote Nazism, Japan used the 1964 Games to promote itself a friendly nation, one that was no longer a threat to the West. A total of $4bn was spent refurbishing Tokyo.
Picture taken on 1 October 1964 showing the two German national delegations parading with the same flag in the stadium of the Olympic Games in Tokyo during the rehearsal of the opening ceremony.
When apartheid South Africa refused to send a multi-racial delegation, it was banned from the Olympics for three decades.
1968, Mexico City
The first to be held in Latin America, the 1968 Games were overshadowed by protests days before the opening ceremony. Authorities' reactions were brutal.
On 2 October, students demonstrating at government spending decision in the central Plaza de Tres Culturas were fired on by Mexican army snipers, with around 300 killed.
Many countries harangued Mexico for what was soon being described as a "massacre", but in the end none boycotted the Games.
A provisional invitation was sent to South Africa, on the condition that it sent a multiracial delegation. This was withdrawn after African countries threatened to stay away if South Africa attended.
1972, Munich
The 1972 Olympics will forever be known for the attack on Israeli athletes and coaches by Palestinian Black September militants, who broke into the Olympic Village, killed two (a wrestling coach and a weightlifter), and took nine others hostage.
Flags fly at half mast in the Munich Olympic stadium on 6 September 1972 during the memorial ceremony for the Israeli victims of the hostage-taking.
At a nearby airport, a German rescue mission was launched, and five of the eight militants were killed, but so too were all Israeli hostages. The massacre cast a shadow over the Games.
Ahead of this year's Paris Olympics, Adidas chose American-Palestinian supermodel Bella Hadid to showcase its retro sneakers inspired by the 1972 Munich Olympics.
However, she was withdrawn after Israel objected, citing her criticism of its war in Gaza.
1976, Montreal
Before these Games, the New Zealand rugby team had controversially accepted an invitation to play in South Africa, so when New Zealand was invited to take part in Montreal, 23 African states boycotted it at the last minute.
Taiwan also withdrew from the Games after it was denied the right to stand as the Official Republic of China.
1980, Moscow
A year earlier, in 1979, the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan, so the 1980 Moscow Olympics were immediately politicised by both the USSR and the United States.
The 1972 Olympics will forever be known for the attack on Israeli athletes and coaches by Palestinian Black September militants.
US President Jimmy Carter declared a boycott. Others followed. Of the 120 countries due to take part, only 81 did. However, many US allies—including Great Britain, France, Finland, Italy, and Spain—did not follow suit.
1984, Los Angeles
In retaliation for the major US boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, the USSR boycotted the Los Angeles Games, as did 14 (Communist) Eastern European countries and Cuba.
The French Olympic delegation attends the opening ceremony of the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome.
China participated for the first time since 1952 and Romania was the only Soviet Bloc country to take part.
1992, Barcelona
The first Olympics to take place after the end of the Cold War were held in Spain. These Games saw the return of some major countries, including South Africa, which had by then renounced apartheid, and a united Germany, after fall of the Berlin Wall.
Other first-time participants include former Soviet satellite states like Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
2016, Rio de Janeiro
These Games were held at the height of a world refugee crisis. From war in Syria, Libya, and Yemen, millions had been displaced. A Refugee Olympic Team was created, with the aim of bringing the crisis to the international forefront.
The Refugee Team entered the opening ceremony carrying the Olympic flag and it included athletes from Syria, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
This began a trend, with a Refugee Team entering the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and another is due to take part in this year's event in Paris.
For once, this is politics and sport mixing in a good way.
