Politics, Games are intertwined
IOC warns athletes against political messages at Tokyo Games; but the peace it promotes depends on politics
More than a half-century later, Tommie Smith and John Carlos are cemented into Olympic lore—their names enshrined in the Olympic Hall of Fame in the United States, their portrait an indelible fixture on the universal sports landscape.
As for that raised-fist salute that transformed them into Olympic icons, while also symbolizing the power athletes possess for the short time they’re on their biggest stage—it’s still forbidden. Such was the warning this month in the announcement by the IOC, whose athletes’ commission banned kneeling and hand gestures during medals ceremonies and competition. It’s all part of an attempt to tamp down political demonstrations at this summer’s Tokyo Games.
“The eyes of the world will be on the athletes and the Olympic Games,” IOC President Thomas Bach said, in delivering an impassioned defence of the rules.
IOC athlete’s rep Kirsty Coventry portrayed the guidance as a way to provide some clarity on an issue that has confounded both athletes and authorities for decades. The issue, always bubbling, surfaced last year when two US athletes—gwen Berry and Race Imboden—used medal ceremonies to make political statements at the Pan American Games. Those gestures brought a strong rebuke from the US Olympic and Paralympic committees, but the groups still appear confused and conflicted about the entire matter. (The USOPC didn’t welcome Smith and Carlos to an officially sanctioned event until 2016.)
The IOC got its athletes’ commission, which has often contradicted key athlete movements in other Olympic areas, to get out front on the issue and offer its advice. It was essentially no different from what the IOC itself has been touting for years. Not surprisingly, some view it as an out-of-touch, retrograde attempt to stifle an increasingly outspoken generation of athletes.
The mushrooming of live TV, to say nothing of the outlets now available on social media, has empowered athletes—the best examples from recent years would be Colin Kaepernick and Megan Rapinoe, but there are dozens more—to use sports to send a message.
Rapinoe’s reaction to the IOC announcement: “We will not be silenced.” As much as her play, Rapinoe’s outspoken fight for equal pay for the US women’s football team underscored the American victory in the World Cup last year and made her, in the minds of many, the most influential athlete of 2019.
“So much being done about protests,” Rapinoe wrote on Instagram last weekend. “So little being done about what we are protesting about.”
The athletes’ commission said disciplinary action would be taken “on a case-by-case basis as necessary” and listed the IOC, the sports federations and the athletes’ national governing bodies as those who will have authority to make the call. It made no mention of what the sanctions could be.
In that respect, it added confusion, and might have served to emphasise the power disparity between the athletes, who are the show, and the agencies who run this multibillion-dollar enterprise and, for all intents and purposes, control the invitation list.
Among the other questions not answered in the guidance document: Who, exactly, will adjudicate the individual cases and how will cases be adjudicated? Who, exactly, will have ultimate responsibility for implementing sanctions?
While those questions went unanswered, the document did include the reminder that “it is a fundamental principle that sport is neutral and must be separate from political, religious or any other type of interference.”
That concept, however, runs counter to long thread of Olympics-as-politics storylines that have dominated the movement since it was founded in 1896.
GAMES NATIONS PLAY
Hitler’s hosting of the 1936 Games (winter and summer) in Nazi Germany.
IOC President Avery Brundage’s ham-handed handling of South Africa’s status in the Olympics during apartheid.
The 1972 massacre of Israeli athletes during the Munich Games. The US boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, followed by the Soviet Union’s boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles Games.
The IOC’S awarding of the 2008 Olympics to Beijing, in part compelled by promises to shine a light on the country’s attempt to improve human rights.
More recently, Bach has found the committee a permanent place at the United Nations, used the Pyeongchang Games in South Korea to strive for better relations between the Koreas and spent ample time negotiating deals with leaders who have been kind enough to spend billions to stage the Olympics.
Though the IOC would argue that there are still places to make political statements in the Olympic space—news conferences and social media among them— it does not condone them on the field of play or the medals stand. It made all the more striking the picture the IOC tweeted out last Monday: Bach posing on a mountain with athletes in uniform from the United States and Iran at the Youth Olympic Games—a political statement during a time of strife that is designed to forward the long-held Ioc-driven credo that the Olympics promote peace.
IT’S ALL POLITICS
Peace itself is dependent on politics, and the people who run the Olympics are well connected to that world.
No fewer than nine members of IOC itself are princes, princesses, dukes or sheiks—and that list doesn’t include the multitude of government officials involved in organisations that branch out of the IOC. For instance, half the World Anti-doping Agency’s board comes from governments across the globe.
Bach has singled out political concerns as a major divider in the Russian doping scandal that has embroiled the Olympics the past five years—implying it’s as much an East vs West issue as one based on decisions that stem from painstakingly accumulated evidence.
The latest move comes in the run-up to what figures to be a divisive election year in the United States, the country that sends the largest contingent to the Olympics, wins the most medals and often lands some of the most outspoken athletes on the podium.
Smith and Carlos were booted from Mexico City after their protest. If history—to say nothing of Rapinoe’s reaction—is any guide, the IOC could be placed in the position to decide whether to make that same sort of statement again.
BENGAL WIN
KOLKATA:ROOKIE spin all-rounder Shahbaz Ahmed shone with a first-innings hat-trick in a sixwicket match haul as Bengal thrashed a sloppy Hyderabad by an innings and 303 runs for their first win.
The 25-year-old, who was bought by Royal Challengers Bangalore for the 2020 edition of the IPL, claimed the feat in his seventh Ranji appearance. Shahbaz (4/26) ran through the Hyderabad lower order to help his side bundle out the visitors for 171 in their first innings. Following on, Hyderabad were all out for 161 with Shahbaz returning figures of 2/51.
Shahbaz became the seventh player from Bengal, and first since India pacer Mohammed Shami, to claim a Ranji Trophy hat-trick. Shami had achieved the milestone against Madhya Pradesh in 2012-13.
Rookie pacer Akash Deep (4/38) was the star in Hyderabad’s second essay as they were bundled out in 46.2 overs. Bengal had scored 635/7 in their first
SARFARAZ HITS TON
MUMBAI:YOUNG Sarfaraz Khan hit an unbeaten century as Mumbai fought back on the third day of their Ranji Trophy game against Uttar Pradesh. UP had posted a mammoth 625/8 in their first essay, courtesy Upendra Yadav’s unbeaten double hundred (203 not out).
Mumbai resumed the day on their overnight score of 20/2 and had a mountain to climb. Siddhesh Lad (98 off 174 balls; 10x4x1x6) and 22-year-old Sarfaraz (132 not out off 160 balls; 14x4; 4x6) gave Mumbai the confidence that UPS first-inning score could be overhauled.
BRIEF SCORES: In Delhi: Vidarbha 179 and 330/3 decl (Ganesh Sathish 100 not out, Akshay Wadkar 70). Delhi 163 and 10/0.
In Kalyani: In Bengal 635/7 decl. Hyderabad 171; 46.3 overs (Jaweed Ali 72; Shahbaz Ahmed 4/26, Mukesh Kumar 3/37, Akash Deep 3/66) and 161; 46.2 overs (Ravi Teja 53; Akash Deep 4/38). Bengal won by an innings and 303 runs.
In Valsad: Gujarat 281 and 167. Punjab 229 and 87/4.