SPORT Virus proved IOC is way out of touch, claims academic
JULES BOYKOFF has a new book coming out next month. ‘Not exactly the best time for that to happen with everyone stuck inside their house,’ the political scientist says with a soft laugh down a phone line from Oregon.
Boykoff has been called one of the ‘foremost names in Olympic academia’ and is regarded as one of the movement’s most ardent critics. His latest work, NOlympians: Inside the Fight against Capitalist Mega-sports in Los Angeles,
Tokyo and Beyond will be the fourth time that the former professional soccer player has lifted the veil and looked at the issues and imperfections that plague the Olympic movement.
In his forthcoming work, he has called for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to ‘press the pause button and reassess everything.’ Those words were written before the sporting world stopped spinning because of the global pandemic, which saw the IOC react belatedly to postpone the Tokyo Games for a year.
But in this crisis, perhaps there lies an opportunity for the Olympic movement to heed Boykoff’s call. He’s not holding his breath. ‘All the evidence we have seen in the historical narrative of the International Olympic Committee says that it does not act decisively or swiftly in the face of a challenge,’ suggests Boykoff, a professor at Pacific University, outside
Portland.
A few weeks ago, as the IOC and Tokyo 2020 organisers were still refusing to accept the reality staring them in the face, Boykoff wrote in an op-ed in the New York
Times stating that the 2020 Games should simply be cancelled. As a former professional athlete, he knew that this idea would not sit well with prospective Olympians, who have poured their heart and souls into reaching Tokyo.
However, he felt too strongly about it to remain silent. ‘I just think pressing the pause button and cleaning house inside of the IOC would be the right thing to do. The big surprise for me, in recent years is the number of academics, journalists and former athletes who are now on board with abolishing the IOC in its present form.
And now, they have got as good a chance as any.’
When the French aristocrat Baron Pierre de Coubertin founded the IOC to organise the modern Olympics during the 1890s, he leaned on people he knew, namely other aristocrats. Even now, the IOC still has that feel. Ten of the 100 members of the committee are royalty of some form or other.
‘What the last few weeks have shown for those who didn’t already know is that the IOC executives, those at the very top, are utterly out of touch with the rest of us who are trying to buy our groceries and get by as best we can in this current crisis,’ says Boykoff.
However, as the IOC and the Japanese government dithered as the global pandemic worsened, many athletes and some international federations took a stand and demanded that the Olympics be postponed.
Boykoff feels this is a critical moment in the modern Games’ history.
‘While the IOC and Tokyo organisers said that the Games must go ahead, athletes stepped up into the leadership vacuum and said that the games must be postponed. Someone had to step up and the fact that it was the athletes, in a way that was really impressive,’ he adds.
‘The IOC motto has always been athletes first and, yet, it took the athletes to push the IOC into making the right decision.
‘They say athletes first but the whole history of the movement shows it is anything but that and you don’t have to go too far into the past to see that – just think of the boxing qualifier in London last month.’
Three days after the World Health Organisation had declared Covid-19 a global pandemic, the IOC boxing task force insisted that the show must go on in London, initially with spectators, before putting the event behind closed doors. It took three days before they bowed to pressure and accepted that the qualifiers had to be postponed.
‘So, when the AIBA (International Boxing Association) was absolutely ravaged by corruption, the IOC took over managing the boxing event. In that role, they allowed that event to take place in London in mid-March after the WHO declared a global pandemic.
‘Coronavirus was a serious problem by that stage. Allowing the event to go ahead shows what the IOC truly thinks about the athletes that they claim to put first,’ Boykoff insists.
‘It has since emerged that at least six fighters, from Turkey and Croatia, claim to have contracted Covid-19 while competing at that event. That is unconscionable, that the lack of leadership from the IOC put the athletes in danger while at the same time, they ignored the WHO,’ Boykoff says.
That is why he feels that a mere postponement of Tokyo 2020 will not solve any of the long-standing issues within the organisation.
‘Maybe, all the issues with the IOC have been pushed under the rug but they might get another airing now we have another year to wait for the Olympics to commence,’ he suggests.
And the upsurge in dissent from athletes and administrators should lead to a wider call to change how the IOC conducts its business.
‘If the IOC needed athletes and administrators to set their moral compass when it came to global health, then it should be abolished and the international community should work towards a different way to organise the Olympics.
‘The coronavirus crisis has shown the world that when it comes to putting on the Olympics, the International Olympic Committee is not just part of the problem – it is the problem.’