The pedagogical ideas of Pierre de Coubertin, the progenitor of the modern Olympic Games, that sports as a noble competition contribute to the construction of a better world and that fair play competition could replace war conflicts, have gone through many trials in the past one hundred and thirty years. The wars did not stop, and the sports arena became another field of political action.
What does the history of the Olympic Games look like through the interference of politics in sports?
While in ancient times, wars were stopped and holy peace was declared during the Olympic Games (in the 1200 years of their duration, none were missed), in modern times, due to the First and Second World Wars, the Games were not held in 1916, 1940 and 1944, but they kept your serial number.
At the Olympic Games in antiquity, the winner, his family and his hometown gained fame. In modern times, from the beginning, states compete. And their politics.
Few people mention that the Olympic flame lighting and torch carrying ceremony was an invention of Hitler's Germany for the 1936 Berlin Games. Despite the unprecedented propaganda that used television for the first time to promote Nazism and the superiority of the white race, the Berlin Olympics are remembered for the best competitor of those Games, the black American Jesse Owens, an athlete who won four gold medals.
Due to the Second World War, Germany and Japan were not allowed to participate in the Games in London in 12, after a 1948-year break.
On the other hand, between the two wars, the Soviet Union nurtured the "Eastern" Spartakiads as a counterpart to "Western" Olympism. The two leading countries of the ideologically divided world used sports fields and mutual competitions as a proving ground for their supremacy. When the Soviet Union decided to join the Olympic movement in 1952, the Spartakiads ceased to exist on the international stage.
At the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico, two black athletes expressed their protest against racial segregation in America by raising their fists high, the symbol of the Black Panthers, on the podium. The American Olympic Committee sent them home because of that gesture, and the International Olympic Committee imposed a lifetime disqualification on them.
The heaviest shadow on the value of Olympism was cast at the Munich Games in 1972 by a Palestinian terrorist attack in which 11 Israeli athletes and coaches were killed. On that occasion, one policeman and five terrorists were killed. Despite the protests and the departure of some teams, the Games continued.
The Olympics in Montreal in 1976 were boycotted by 29 African countries. The reason was the visiting of New Zealand competitors in South Africa, which was excluded from the world Olympic family for 32 years due to apartheid. He will return to it only in Barcelona in 1992.
The United States of America and some Western countries did not participate in the 1980 Moscow Olympics, as a sign of protest against the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. Four years later, there was a political revenge: the athletes of the Soviet Union and 18 other countries of the Eastern Bloc do not come to the Games in Los Angeles.
Barcelona 1992 is remembered for the fact that the sanctions against Yugoslavia by the United Nations Security Council were extended to its athletes. Exclusion from team sports competitions, in which Yugoslavia dominated the world sports scene, was followed by a ban on individuals competing under the national flag. Our athletes were returned to full membership at the following games in Atlanta, under the name of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Despite the great efforts made to distance the international Olympic movement from politics and political conflicts, in 2008 the leaders of certain Western countries proposed a boycott of the Games in Beijing. In a demonstration of support for Tibet, the Olympic torch, a symbol of unity, was momentarily extinguished. The Games opened spectacularly on the same day that the war in South Ossetia began.
photo: ap photoRussian women's water polo team
Apart from the serious crisis on the Brazilian political scene, the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro were marked by a doping scandal in which Russian athletes were the main actors. The International Olympic Committee avoided suspending all Russian competitors from the Games, leaving that role to the sports federations to decide individually who can compete. Despite this decision and the justification of the fight against doping, there was doubt as to whether this whole case was politically motivated. However, a multi-year investigation by the World Anti-Doping Agency found that Russia had a state-orchestrated doping program and therefore punished her with a four-year suspension. After an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, Russia's penalty was halved, so at the 2021 Tokyo Games, Russian competitors who have proven that they are "clean" are allowed to perform, but without state symbols, and in case of victory, instead of the national anthem, a piano song would be sung. Tchaikovsky's concert.
Even the XXXIII Olympic Games, which begin on July 26 in Paris, were not spared from political interference in the great celebration of sports. We will see how the Games will go in terms of sports and everything else, on August 11, when the flag will be lowered and the Olympic flame extinguished, but it is already known that Russia and Belarus will not participate in them due to the war in Ukraine. Athletes from these countries will be allowed to compete, but without state marks and symbols and only in individual competition. On the other hand, Russian athletes at home were advised not to go to the Olympic Games, so this time one of the biggest sports powers in Paris will be represented by only 15 athletes. Thus, not for the first time, athletes are still discriminated against because of the politics of their countries and without the opportunity to feel the Olympic spirit in the country of freedom, equality and brotherhood, which implies mutual understanding, friendship, solidarity and fair play in building a better and more peaceful world, as one of the principles of the Olympic Charter.
Olympic Charter
This charter is a set of rules for organizing the Olympic Games and managing the Olympic movement. It was adopted at the founding congress of the International Olympic Committee in 1894 and serves as a codification of basic principles, rules and by-laws. The rules have changed, but the basic principles of Olympism have not. In today's turbulent and divided world, some of the principles are worth underlining:
- The goal of Olympism is to put sports at the service of harmonious human development in order to create a peaceful society that strives to preserve human dignity. For this purpose, the Olympic movement is involved, alone or in cooperation with other organizations and within its capabilities, in actions to promote peace.
- By raising the youth through sport in which there is no discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit that implies mutual understanding, friendship, solidarity and "fair play", the Olympic movement strives to contribute to the construction of a better and more peaceful world.
- The action of the Olympic movement is permanent and universal. It covers five continents. The pinnacle of the Olympic movement is the Olympic Games, which unite athletes from all over the world in a great celebration of sports.
