The time has come to press pause and re-imagine the
Olympics. It might even be time, I’ve come to believe, for the entire endeavor
to close down for good.
اضافة اعلان
First, consider the near term.
In July, yet another wildly over budget Summer Games,
originally slated for 2020 but postponed because of the pandemic, will begin in
Tokyo.
The timing remains awful.
Japan has worked hard to tamp down the coronavirus, but now
cases are creeping up, and the nation’s vaccination rate is lagging. Organizers
just rerouted the torch relay planned this week to reach the streets of Osaka,
where one health official said the spread of new variants had pushed the
medical system to “the verge of collapse.”
Into this troubled environment, 11,000 athletes from all
corners of the globe will descend, with coaches, officials, Olympic support
staff, media workers and more.
The Tokyo Games could end up being a three-week
superspreader event that leads to death and illness across Japan and far
beyond.
The Japanese public has grown wise to the health risk. It is
also aware of the estimates that show the cost for the games has swollen to a
record $15.4 billion, up $3 billion in the last year alone. Recent surveys show
close to 80 percent of Japanese say the games should be postponed again or
canceled.
Then there are the Winter Games, scheduled for February 2022
in and around Beijing. Anticipation has mostly centered on whether they should
be boycotted because China has been repeatedly accused of brutalizing its own
people. China denies such claims, but the Biden administration, the Canadian
Parliament, United Nations officials and up to 180 human rights organizations
have said China is engaged in genocide against ethnic Muslim minorities.
That’s on top of the current Chinese government’s brutal
record of crackdowns on dissent in Hong Kong and Tibet, which its officials
have continued to deny.
What’s the best way to respond?
Should the Biden administration push an all-out boycott that
keeps athletes at home even as a Chinese foreign minister last week warned of a
“robust Chinese response”?
Should US corporate sponsors bow out? Should American
broadcasters refuse to show China in a favorable light?
Do winter athletes go to Beijing while US diplomats steer
clear? There are some pundits who believe athletes could send the sharpest
signals, by rising in protest on medal podiums, during the opening ceremony or
the competitions.
But that’s asking a lot of a group shut out of genuine power
by the International Olympic Committee, which still has Rule 50 on its books, a
bylaw that strictly bans displays of dissent. To go against it is to risk being
barred from future competition.
“I would be terrified to protest in China, and I will be
terrified for my American teammates if any of them decide to stand up” and make
their opinions known while there, said Noah Hoffman, a two-time Olympic
cross-country skier who is now a board member for Global Athlete, a nonprofit
pushing to reform the games.
Hoffman noted the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee
recently agreed to allow athlete protest, but until the IOC does the same,
athlete voices will continue to be muted.
Recall that in 2014, the Winter Olympics were hosted in
Sochi, Russia. The host nation not only conducted a vast doping operation
during the event, but annexed Crimea shortly afterward, prompting widespread
international condemnation. Why did the IOC award the 2022 Games to yet another
autocracy with a shoddy human rights record?
In 2015, when the final decision was made, two options
remained: China — which held the summer games seven years earlier — and another
dictatorship, Kazakhstan. Nations that would seem to be more ideal hosts,
including Norway and Sweden, dropped out of the running, part of a trend toward
skepticism about the costs of hosting an Olympics.
The modern Olympics, founded in the 1890s as a way to
showcase “a life based on the joy found in effort, the educational value of a
good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles,” are now
synonymous with scandal of many varieties, including doping, bribery and
physical abuse of athletes.
It’s time to ask the big questions about the Olympic
enterprise.
Are the benefits worth the costs?
Should the Olympics continue to exist if they keep causing
such harm?
What could genuine reform look like?
Here are a few ideas.
Stop awarding the games to authoritarian nations that
blatantly disregard human rights.
Give athletes greater power — not just so they can protest
from the medal stands, but so they can be equal partners in shaping the entire
Olympic movement.
Instead of hopscotching across the world, consider
alternatives. Maybe park the games permanently at two well-used venues — one
for summer, one for winter. That would cut costs, environmental damage and
displacement. It would also end the churn of a bidding process that invites
corruption.
Or decentralize. Hold individual events in already built
sites across the globe during a three-week window. Sure, we’d have to give up
the spectacle of a lavish opening ceremony and the thought of athletes from
different sports mingling in Olympic Villages. But in an interconnected world
full of lavish spectacle, is all that still a must?
I admit, there aren’t many straightforward answers, but it’s
time to work toward a new future.
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