Now I’m going to make a bit of a personal confession about something I’ve always felt
kind of alone on, I’ve personally never really cared for sports all that much.
Whether it’s my American relatives screaming at the TV during the football game or my European
friends screaming at the TV during the football game, I’ve never really been much into sports.
However, the world of sports can paint a picture of the politics of the world and what messages
a particular country might want to send, especially if it’s the one hosting the games.
This can be seen in one of the biggest sporting events in the world, the Olympics.
As the Olympics are being held right now in Tokyo after a year-long delay, what are the
effects that the games have on the politics of the world, and at home?
[This video was sponsored by Skillshare.
Also join the Discord server because those freaks kept telling me to shout it out]
The Olympic Games are one of the largest sporting events in the world.
With summer and winter versions held every two years, these games put a spotlight on
the city and especially the country hosting them.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) officially does not allow demonstrations relating
to politics, race, religion, or anything of the sort at any IOC-sanctioned events.
After all, surely an event that allows Hong Kong to compete independent of China in Beijing
(and run by an organization literally based in Switzerland) would want to stay out of
politics, however perhaps it isn’t all that surprising that one of the biggest and most
prestigious televised events on the planet hasn’t always been able to escape the grasp
of politics.
Now first, possibly the most important part of preparing for the Olympics is choosing
which city it will be held in.
Every two years cities around the world submit their bids to host the games.
If their bids are approved, they are put on a ten-month audit to ensure they have the
accommodation and transit infrastructure to comfortably support the athletes, teams, journalists,
and not to mention all the spectators.
The 2016 Olympics in the Brazilian non-capital of Rio de Janeiro for instance saw over 11,000
athletes competing to an audience of over half a million (not including the billions
more watching on TV or online), during which time roads and transit, hotels, airports,
markets, sewers, and everything else had be able to safely accommodate this vast influx
of people.
Basically hosting the Olympics is like playing Cities: Skylines on ultra-hardcore mode.
Once it passes the audit, the city pays a fee of $150,000 to the IOC and is now considered
a candidate city and is voted on in three consecutive rounds by the 115 IOC members
who are eligible to vote.
After this, a whole series of events kicks off which…
*sigh* honestly, just watch the Wendover video.
As you could maybe imagine though, some of these picks have been a bit more controversial
than others.
In a famous example, the 1980 summer Olympics were to be held in Moscow, however just that
previous year the Soviet Union started to invade Afghanistan, installing a Communist-led
government in the nation, which sparked international outrage.
The idea of a boycott of these games had been thrown around before in response to human
rights violations in the USSR, however in January, 1980 the US government issued an
ultimatum to Moscow, to pull out of Afghanistan by 20.February or have the games boycotted.
Canada joined twelve days later, and after the deadline passed with no change in Moscow’s
actions, the US persuaded its allies to join.
Japan joined, West Germany complained that “the US shouldn’t just be telling its
NATO allies what to do” and then joined anyway, and soon enough more than 50 countries
had joined the boycott, with 65 total not participating.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation even made their own separate boycott of the games.
Then US President Jimmy Carter even suggested that the games only be held in Greece from
then on, to keep disputes like this from happening in the future, an idea which the IOC rejected.
Boycotting the Olympics though is not a decision that always comes lightly though, considering
how long athletes spend training for an event on this scale which only happens every four
years.
In the case of the 1980 Olympics, 29 of the nations that had joined the US boycott instead
competed in the Liberty Bell Classic, held in Philadelphia just a few days before the
Moscow games.
However, with the 1984 Olympics being held in Los Angeles, 15 countries then joined a
Soviet-led boycott of these games.
Taiwan, which regardless of its official sovereignty does still compete in the Olympics, was one
of the countries that refused to participate in the 1980 Moscow games, but not for the
US boycott, rather because of how it would be classified.
Now you probably know this place as Taiwan, but the island also has a few alternate names,
namely the one Big Taiwan wants people to use, Chinese Taipei.
Taiwan was refused official representation in the 1976 Montreal Olympics as only one
China could be recognized as a nation and could therefore compete in the Olympics.
In 1979 though, the Nagoya Resolution was enacted to allow China and Taiwan to both
compete (I’m referring to them as China and Taiwan because it’s just easier, okay?),
though predictably China wanted Taiwan not to have any sort of reference to its national
symbols or mention of nationhood.
Thus, Taiwan has been referred to as Chinese Taipei, though Chinese in this context was
left deliberately ambiguous, meaning China can think it means politically Chinese, while
Taiwan can think it means culturally Chinese, it’s like the difference between a Chinese
passport and Chinese food.
In Chinese however (the language, that is), there is no such ambiguity, it is either 中国台北
(Zhōngguó Táiběi) or 中華台北 (Zhōnghuá Táiběi), which came to afoot in the 1990
Asian Games in Beijing.
Taiwan found the Chinese version unacceptable, and after back and forth China eventually
accepted the Taiwanese version, though not without struggles explaining the difference
to the moderators.
On numerous occasions, nations have attempted to use the Olympics to bolster their public
image, with varying results.
For example, in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil installed a whole new team
of competitors called the Refugee Team, composed only of refugees from around the world.
They represented the countries including Syria, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Dr. Congo, but the
move was architected to convey the notion that Brazil was a humanitarian country and
patron of the Olympic spirit - even though at the exact same time Brazil’s president
was facing impeachment charges, corruption was rife in Rio, and Brazil was too deep in
their own economic trouble to do much for refugees.
Not only are the Olympic Games a way for the host nation to push its political propaganda,
but other nations also jump on the opportunity to prove that their country is superior to
others, by fielding their best athletes and training excessively.
The Soviet Union is especially guilty of this.
Since the Soviets’ image of Communist perfection depended on their people seeming happier,
stronger, fitter and more successful than everyone else, the Olympics were a huge event
for them - the prime chance to bolster this image.
Throughout the twentieth century, the Soviet government forced anyone with athletic potential
into professional sports, training them extremely hard and punishing those who resisted.
This was all part of the Soviets’ “triangle theory”, whereby if the government forced
as many people into sports as possible, there was more chance of many top athletes being
created.
Essentially this is how the Soviet Union operated and prepared for every Olympic event since
its establishment.
Although of course quick minds will point out that it very often wasn’t just rigorous
training in the case of the USSR, or indeed modern Russia, the consequences of which they
saw in 2018.
Hosting the Olympics however can also have a detrimental effect on the host country.
While some cities can be put back on the map by the games (like Barcelona in 1992) and
certain infrastructure projects-- like Vancouver’s SkyTrain line to its airport or Seoul cleaning
up the Han River-- can still see use long after the games have ended, others aren’t
always so lucky… like Athens.
The economic benefits of hosting such an event are usually nowhere near as great as one might
assume.
Sure, host cities often generate billions of dollars in revenue, but they usually spend
many billions more to host the Olympics in the first place.
For example, the cost of making a bid to hold the Olympics alone often costs many tens of
millions of dollars.
Then you have to factor in the cost of the infrastructure required to manage the games.
Additionally, once the games are over, the host city is typically left with very large
arenas and venues with hefty maintenance costs.
This often puts the host city in debt throughout the succeeding years.
If a nation holding the Olympic Games cannot generate a profit from the event, then the
only real benefit is the prestige and political propaganda that comes from it.
It’s not hard to see that the Olympic Games are just as much a political competition as
they are a sports competition.
For decades countries have manipulated the games to promote their regimes and impose
sanctions on others.
It’s also the reason why cities spend millions of dollars bidding to host the Olympics, and
then spend hundreds of millions more building infrastructure - the propaganda advantage
far outweighs any debt accrued as a result of the event.
With the Olympics being held right now-- even with strict bans on political demonstrations--
there’s no doubt that many countries have vested interests in the competition, and will
use the spotlight to achieve political ends.
So if this video has taught you anything, possibly even by how I talked about all the
events here, perhaps it’s that few things in life are completely safe from controversy.
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