Olympians not likely to protest at Sochi
Games not the place for political stands
PARIS Perhaps the most under-worked journalists at the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics were those tasked with spotting any protests by athletes. Since Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps and their fellow, far less famous Olympians didn’t yell “Free political prisoners!” or wave Tibetan flags, the reporters had little or no meat for stories.
Next February at the Sochi Games, protest-watch reporters should be free to hit the bars early, too. As in Beijing in 2008, chances are slim to nil that significant numbers of winter Olympians will kick up a big fuss against Russia’s assaults on gays and their freedoms.
Not necessarily that athletes don’t care. Two Swedish athletes showed they care by painting their fingernails in gay-pride rainbow colours at track and field’s world championships in Moscow this month.
But the Olympics, by design, aren’t an easy or even a wise place for athletes with a conscience to make political or social statements.
It is fanciful to suggest that Sochi-bound Olympians will or should follow the example of Tommie Smith and John Carlos, the U.S. sprinters who struck a world-electrifying blow for the AfricanAmerican cause by thrusting their black-gloved fists in the air on the Olympic medal podium in 1968.
Those were angry That was the era Muhammad Ali refused to serve in the Vietnam War, leading to a ban from boxing, because he couldn’t see “why we and other so-called Negroes go 10,000 miles to drop bombs and bullets on other innocent brown people who’s never bothered us.”
To think that the PlayStation generation of athletes could now be equally defiant and militant, well ... LOL. Some of the wealthiest athletes today are also those who have learned to keep their mouths shut and their sponsors happy.
Sure, there could be tweets of displeasure from Sochi about Russia’s anti-gay laws. We’ll look for subtle messages from athletes such as the photos of a rainbow and her rainbow-painted nails that Swedish high jumper Emma Green Tregaro posted from Moscow to her Instagram followers.
“A small and simple gesture,” she said in a phone interview.
Doing nothing wasn’t an option for her.
“It would have felt very cowardly,” Green Tregaro said. “I wouldn’t have liked myself if I didn’t paint the nails. I think the world got the message.”
Yes. But it’s a giant stretch to imagine legions of winter Olympians marching in Sochi with small rainbow flags or unfurling them on medal podiums in an LGBT imitation of Smith and Carlos. I hope Olympians prove me wrong. But there are many reasons to think none of that will happen.
Olympians are first and foremost competitors. Having sweated so hard to get to Sochi, their priority will be performing to the best of their abilities, not protesting.
Blake Skjellerup, a New Zealand speedskater who is gay, plans to pin a small rainbow flag — “my pride pin,” he calls it — on the plastic-laminated accreditation badge all Olympians are required to wear.
“The statement is I’m gay and I’m not going to hide that in Russia,” he said in a phone interview.
But he added: “For me, competing definitely does come first. Because this is something that I have worked toward for my entire career and I really don’t want to jeopardize that. Yes, the human rights movement is very important to me. But I think what is more important is for me to remain in Sochi and I should do everything possible to do that. I don’t want to put my competing in jeopardy.”
Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter is clear: “No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted” at the games. The charter says violators can be expelled and even be stripped of medals. Smith and Carlos were expelled from the 1968 Mexico City Games after their ‘black power’ salute.