tag:theconversation.com,2011:/nz/topics/1936-berlin-olympics-29710/articles1936 Berlin Olympics – The Conversation2021-11-10T18:44:58Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1715552021-11-10T18:44:58Z2021-11-10T18:44:58ZOlympic Games are great for propagandists – how the lessons of Hitler’s Olympics loom over Beijing 2022<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431178/original/file-20211109-19-wz7uvf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C23%2C7651%2C5074&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Will anodyne reporting from the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics play into China's propaganda efforts? </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/women-practice-a-dance-routine-in-front-of-a-large-news-photo/1349382921?adppopup=true">Kevin Frayer/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On the morning of Aug. 14, 1936, two NBC employees met for breakfast at a café in Berlin. Max Jordan and Bill Slater were discussing the Olympic Games they were broadcasting back to the United States – and the Nazi propaganda machine that had made their work, and their visit to Germany, somewhat unpleasant. </p>
<p>Slater complained about all the staged regimentation and the obviously forced smiles everywhere. </p>
<p>“Why don’t they revolt? We wouldn’t stand for all this browbeating and bullying in America. I know that. Why do they stand for it here?” Slater asked Jordan. </p>
<p>As they were talking, three armed Nazi guards sat down at the next table. The whole café quieted. “It was as though a chill had come over those present,” Jordan later recalled. “In a nutshell, there was the answer to Bill’s question.”</p>
<p>I included the story Max Jordan recounted in his memoir <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p082214">in my book on the Nazi origins of Olympic broadcasting</a> because it perfectly encapsulated the quandary facing American sports journalists whenever the International Olympic Committee pushes them to broadcast happy images provided by repressive regimes.</p>
<p>It’s now less than 100 days from the opening ceremony of the <a href="https://olympics.com/en/beijing-2022/">2022 Beijing Winter Olympics</a>, and therefore it’s time for an honest discussion about the ethics of sport journalism and the morality of American media’s complicity with authoritarian regimes that hide the active repression of their citizens.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431176/original/file-20211109-17-1oy0w0d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A 1936 sign from Germany saying Jews were forbidden to go to that year's Winter Olympics." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431176/original/file-20211109-17-1oy0w0d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/431176/original/file-20211109-17-1oy0w0d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431176/original/file-20211109-17-1oy0w0d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431176/original/file-20211109-17-1oy0w0d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431176/original/file-20211109-17-1oy0w0d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431176/original/file-20211109-17-1oy0w0d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/431176/original/file-20211109-17-1oy0w0d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A sign reading ‘Juden Zutritt verboten!’ forbidding entry by Jewish people to the 1936 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sign-reading-juden-zutritt-verboten-forbidding-entry-by-news-photo/1277756265?adppopup=true">Photo FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Abundant evidence</h2>
<p>The world knows what China is doing right now. Courageous reporting has publicized the series of <a href="https://www.icij.org/investigations/china-cables/as-global-pressure-over-human-rights-abuses-in-xinjiang-picks-up-china-remains-defiant/">repressive domestic</a> and <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/operation-fox-hunt-how-china-exports-repression-using-a-network-of-spies-hidden-in-plain-sight">international actions taken by the Chinese government</a> over the past five years.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/world/asia/china-uighur-muslim-detention-camp.html">persecution of the Uyghurs</a> and other human rights abuses, the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/24/chinas-new-hong-kong-laws-a-breach-of-agreement-foreign-officials-say.html">abrogation of the Hong Kong treaty</a> along with the imposition of the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/hong-kong-europe-business-5a7f50d5d5027fda34f9addeb883e809">Chinese government’s repression</a> in that port city, and the prevention of <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/07/22/1019244601/china-who-coronavirus-lab-leak-theory">a comprehensive and transparent investigation</a> into the origins of COVID-19 are all well documented. </p>
<p>Thus, the Chinese government now wants good press in the West. And its efforts to ensure favorable coverage have prompted new concerns about media control and censorship during the Games, with <a href="https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/us-calls-china-not-limit-journalists-freedom-2022-beijing-winter-olympics-2021-11-04/">a U.S. government spokesman recently</a> urging Chinese government officials “not to limit freedom of movement and access for journalists and to ensure that they remain safe and able to report freely, including at the Olympic and the Paralympic Games.”</p>
<p>But, as was clear from the experience during the 1936 Olympics, if U.S. journalists go to Beijing and emphasize the beauty of its landscape, the happiness of its citizenry and its futuristic infrastructure, and fail to cover the more controversial realities in China, that would signal compliance with – and promotion of – Chinese propaganda. </p>
<p>This is American sports journalism’s Red Smith moment. </p>
<h2>Politics, meet sports</h2>
<p>On Jan. 4, 1980, Walter “Red” Smith, the veteran New York Times sports columnist, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1980/01/04/archives/boycott-the-moscow-olympics-sports-of-the-times-we-should-have.html">surprised his readership</a> with his endorsement of the boycott movement against that summer’s Moscow Olympic Games. Boycott advocates were protesting the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. </p>
<p>Smith’s stance was unexpected, as he had carefully sidestepped – or even ignored – many other moments he considered unhealthy political intrusion into international athletic competition. But Smith wrote that history had proved that America’s participation in the Nazi Games was a mistake – even if the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/day6/naming-heatwaves-custodians-vs-covid-19-nba-barbers-online-moderators-jesse-owens-granddaughter-and-more-1.5719784/remembering-jesse-owens-the-black-olympian-who-humiliated-hitler-1.5719794">great Black American runner Jesse Owens</a> redeemed the event in public memory.</p>
<p>“When Americans look back to the 1936 Olympics,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1980/01/04/archives/boycott-the-moscow-olympics-sports-of-the-times-we-should-have.html">Smith wrote in his famous column</a>, “they take pleasure only in the memory of Jesse Owens’ four gold medals.” Outside of that, he admitted, “we are ashamed at having been guests at Adolf Hitler’s big party.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/16/obituaries/red-smith-sports-columnist-who-won-pulitzer-dies-at-76.html">Smith was an old-school sports reporter</a>, already an old-timer in 1980 – he died in 1982. His reporting and columns reflected the influence of <a href="https://theathletic.com/1876184/2020/06/18/how-he-played-the-game-assessing-the-complicated-legacy-of-grantland-rice/">Grantland Rice</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1976/07/17/archives/paul-gallico-sportswriter-and-author-is-dead-at-78-founded-golden.html">Paul Gallico</a>, the giants who invented modern American sports writing in the 1920s. But there had always existed another group of sports reporters less afraid to point out obvious political unpleasantness.</p>
<p>For example, the great <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1973/12/06/archives/jimmy-cannon-columnist-dies-sportswriter-ranged-far-afield-protege.html">Jimmy Cannon</a> had no problem freely peppering political references and acerbic commentary throughout his columns. Westbrook Pegler detested the Nazis and <a href="https://olympic-century.blogspot.com/2016/11/arms-and-olympics-westbrook-pegler-and.html">criticized them relentlessly</a> throughout the 1936 Games. And Howard Cosell’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEg3uNqsTYQ">sharp commentaries</a>, on such issues as Muhammad Ali’s boxing suspension in the 1960s and the political activism that erupted in 1968 in Mexico City, remain a credit to his legacy.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fEg3uNqsTYQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘The U.S. Olympic Committee … is in the main a group of pompous, arrogant and medieval-minded men who regard the games as a private social preserve,’ said Howard Cosell.</span></figcaption>
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<p>That Red Smith had spent decades remaining largely apolitical in public made his support for the boycott surprising. That he was only the second sports columnist to be <a href="https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/walter-wellesley-red-smith">awarded a Pulitzer Prize</a>, and that his opinions were widely respected, gave his endorsement significant clout. </p>
<h2>‘The one lever we have’</h2>
<p>Smith opened the gates for others to point out the incongruity and obvious hypocrisy of celebrating the Soviet Union’s peaceful intentions while the Soviet army was invading and occupying Afghanistan. In his column, Smith quoted British Member of Parliament Neville Trotter, who led the boycott movement in Great Britain. </p>
<p>“This is the one lever we have to show our outrage at this naked aggression by Russia,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1980/01/04/archives/boycott-the-moscow-olympics-sports-of-the-times-we-should-have.html">Trotter told Smith</a>. “We should do all we can to reduce the Moscow Olympics to a shambles.” </p>
<p>One well-known and nationally respected sports journalist has explicitly and unambiguously called for boycotting the 2022 Beijing Games: Sally Jenkins. The Washington Post’s veteran columnist – who last year was a finalist for <a href="https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/sally-jenkins-washington-post">the Pulitzer Prize for commentary</a> – published a scorching column plainly stating that “ignorance is no longer an excuse.”</p>
<p>“It was a forgivable mistake to award an Olympics to Beijing in 2008,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2021/08/09/boycott-beijing-olympics">she wrote</a>. “It’s unforgivable to hold one there now.”</p>
<p>Red Smith’s boycott column remains one of his most important and lasting examples of public service. As a media historian, I believe that those who emulate his courage today, like Sally Jenkins, will likely be remembered in the same way tomorrow.</p>
<p>[<em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-newsletter-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171555/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael J. Socolow does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the face of China’s repression and human rights abuses, a scholar asks whether cheerful media coverage of the Beijing Olympics in February 2022 signals complicity with Chinese propaganda.Michael J. Socolow, Associate Professor, Communication and Journalism, University of MaineLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1549112021-03-07T14:37:08Z2021-03-07T14:37:08Z2022 Winter Olympics will help Beijing ‘sportwash’ its human rights record<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387350/original/file-20210302-13-kb3ogz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C14%2C4910%2C3308&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There are mounting calls for a boycott of next year's Winter Olympics in Beijing.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/uighur-genocide-motion-vote-1.5922711">Canada’s Parliament recently passed a non-binding resolution</a> declaring the treatment of the Uyghur minority in China’s Xinjiang province an act of genocide by the Chinese state.</p>
<p>Next year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing have become part of the political debate on how the Canadian government should respond to the Chinese government’s treatment of the Uyghurs.</p>
<p>Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole has called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/o-toole-relocate-olympic-games-2020-1.5915318">to pressure the International Olympic Committee to relocate the Games</a> because sending athletes to a country that is committing genocide would “violate universal fundamental ethical principles.” <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55938034">Human rights organizations</a> around the world have also called for a boycott.</p>
<p>For its part, the Canadian Olympic Committee has said a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/canada-olympic-paralympic-committees-beijing-2022-boycott-1.5899476">boycott is not the answer</a>, adding that “the interests of all Canadians, and the global community, are advanced through competing and celebrating great Canadian performances and values on the Olympic and Paralympic stage.”</p>
<p>Overlooked in the boycott debate is the impact on sport by allowing the world’s highest-profile event to be used to “sportwash” a nation’s reputation.</p>
<h2>Some athletes oppose a boycott</h2>
<p>Some have questioned how an athlete boycott would impact Chinese human rights policies. They argue that <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-china-olympic-boycott-1.5912608">a boycott only harms athletes</a>. For most athletes, competing in the Olympics is the pinnacle of their competitive careers. </p>
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<img alt="Effigies hang within the five rings of the Olympic logo" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387351/original/file-20210302-17-d1rph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387351/original/file-20210302-17-d1rph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387351/original/file-20210302-17-d1rph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387351/original/file-20210302-17-d1rph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387351/original/file-20210302-17-d1rph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387351/original/file-20210302-17-d1rph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387351/original/file-20210302-17-d1rph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Exiled Tibetans in India use the Olympic Rings as a prop as they hold a street protest against holding the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. Five effigies represent Taiwan, Tibet, Hong Kong, Inner Mongolia and the region ethnic Uyghurs call East Turkestan, under Chinese control.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ashwini Bhatia)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Athletes in all sports have had to forgo competitive opportunities as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. After the postponement of last summer’s Tokyo Games, no group of athletes has been more negatively affected than Olympians.</p>
<p>Athletes are not a single-minded, apolitical mass. Some do not want to sacrifice the opportunity they have worked toward for much of their elite competitive career. And some have expressed their desire to separate sport and politics. </p>
<h2>Mixing politics and sports</h2>
<p>Concerns about China’s human rights record over the treatment of Tibet were also expressed when Beijing hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics. At the time, then-IOC President Jacques Rogge reiterated <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2008/03/the-olympics-are-the-perfect-place-for-a-protest.html">the long-standing position</a> that such “politics” have no place in the Olympics. </p>
<p>Canada’s flag-bearer at the 2008 Summer Olympics, kayaker Adam van Koeverden, <a href="https://www.thestar.com/sports/olympics/2008/05/22/van_koeverden_upset_by_stojko_think_twice_call.html">publicly opposed any talk of protests</a> over China’s human rights policies. Van Koeverden is now a Liberal MP and the parliamentary secretary for Canadian Heritage for Sport — he <a href="https://www.ourcommons.ca/members/en/votes/43/2/56">voted in favour</a> of the genocide resolution, but still opposes an Olympic boycott. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1358927027387195392"}"></div></p>
<p>But to assume that all athletes feel sport and politics should be separate is to ignore the powerful developments of the past year, when athletes played a prominent role in <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/wnba-protest-black-lives-matter_ca_5f496791c5b697186e35f3a6">Black Lives Matter and #MeToo-inspired protests</a>.</p>
<p>While the Olympic movement’s origins celebrate international good will, education and intercultural understanding, modern sport has been “political” since it emerged in the late 19th century.</p>
<p>Those who controlled sports events determined who could participate, who could not (quite often women, working classes, Indigenous Peoples and people of colour) and under what rules — such as celebrating amateurism’s “sport for sport’s sake” mantra while denying talented athletes an income commensurate with their skills.</p>
<h2>Olympics no stranger to politics</h2>
<p>The Olympics has long also been embroiled in international politics.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91246674">1936 Games in Nazi Germany</a>, itself subject of heated boycott debates, is the most oft-cited example.</p>
<p>Many athletes whose convictions prevented them from competing in Berlin travelled instead to Barcelona for an alternate “<a href="https://www.catalannews.com/sports/item/the-1936-anti-nazi-people-s-olympics-a-lesser-known-games-in-barcelona">People’s Games</a>,” which never moved beyond the opening ceremonies following the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.</p>
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<img alt="Thousands of soldiers give the Nazi salute while the Olympic flame burns in the foreground." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387557/original/file-20210303-19-1b4cyjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387557/original/file-20210303-19-1b4cyjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387557/original/file-20210303-19-1b4cyjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387557/original/file-20210303-19-1b4cyjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387557/original/file-20210303-19-1b4cyjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387557/original/file-20210303-19-1b4cyjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387557/original/file-20210303-19-1b4cyjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">German Nazi soldiers line up at attention during the opening ceremonies of the 1936 Summer Olympic Games in Berlin. Some athletes boycotted the Berlin Olympics in an early example of athletes taking a political stand.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/File)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In an era of decolonization, some leaders of developing nations opted for their own multi-sport event in 1963: <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/2799-a-third-world-olympics-sport-politics-and-the-developing-world-in-the-1963-games-of-the-new-emerging-forces-ganefo">the short-lived Games of the New Emerging Forces</a> (GANEFO).</p>
<p>Initiated by Indonesia, GANEFO was an attempt to provide athletes from newly decolonized nations with an alternate to the Olympics. Organizers overtly integrated the politics of anti-colonialism and the non-aligned movement into the event’s messages. Stern opposition was expressed by both the IOC and the U.S. State Department (whose citizens were not involved) and international sporting bodies suspended those athletes who participated in GANEFO.</p>
<p>Not all boycott actions are created equal. Geopolitical disputes managed by state governments differ from grassroots social movements challenging established power structures.</p>
<h2>Soviet boycott of ’84 Games</h2>
<p>The Soviet bloc’s boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics — a diplomatic rejoinder to the West’s boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan — was very different from the movement to <a href="https://www.aamarchives.org/campaigns/sport.html">boycott sport competitions against South African cricket and rugby teams</a> in the apartheid era. The latter, however, did contribute to an Olympic boycott, when <a href="https://www.olympic.org/montreal-1976">22 African nations refused to compete at the 1976 Montréal Games</a> over the presence of athletes from New Zealand, a country that had been targeted by protesters for continuing to schedule matches against all-white teams from South Africa. </p>
<p>The 2022 Winter Olympics were controversial even before Beijing was picked as host city.</p>
<p>No Olympic bidding cycle drew as little interest as 2022, with major winter sport cities such as Oslo withdrawing bids in the face of opposition from its citizens. The IOC was left with only two candidates — Beijing and Almaty, Kazakhstan — leading Human Rights Watch to warn that “<a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/01/19/human-rights-and-2022-olympics">major sporting events are also accompanied by human rights violations when games are awarded to serial human rights abusers</a>.”</p>
<p>Rogge may have asserted in 2008 that “<a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2008/03/the-olympics-are-the-perfect-place-for-a-protest.html">the Olympic Games are not the place for demonstrations</a>.” But the IOC’s position overlooks other alternatives. There are alpine hills, arenas, bobsled tracks and other facilities — many of them built for previous Olympics — in many winter sport destinations. Olympians could still compete if a decision was made to move the Games from Beijing.</p>
<p>Presuming, as van Koeverden did in 2008, that having the Games in China will not “<a href="https://www.thestar.com/sports/olympics/2008/05/22/van_koeverden_upset_by_stojko_think_twice_call.html">contribute to their problems or make them any worse</a>” only entangles the Olympics in the very politics it seeks to avoid.</p>
<p>It becomes harder for the IOC to stake a claim to an apolitical high ground if it allows the Chinese government to “sportwash” its treatment of Uyghurs by showcasing sporting events in an effort to obscure the events unfolding in Xinjiang.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154911/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Russell Field does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While governments and some athletes are opposed to a boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, failing to take a stand against China’s human rights record has consequences.Russell Field, Associate Professor, Sport and Physical Activity, University of ManitobaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/955422018-04-26T12:48:52Z2018-04-26T12:48:52ZLeni Riefenstahl: both feminist icon and fascist film-maker<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216482/original/file-20180426-175061-1ink0vw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Leni Riefenstahl as war correspondent in Poland 1939, wearing a Wehrmacht uniform.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_146-2004-0022,_Polen,_Truppenbesuch_von_Leni_Riefenstahl.jpg">German Federal Archives</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The dancer, actress, director and photographer Helene “Leni” Riefenstahl, who died in 2003, is a controversial character, largely because of the many propaganda movies she produced for the Nazis. So when it was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/24/berlin-museum-offers-glimpse-of-leni-riefenstahl-estate">recently announced</a> that her estate would be handed over to a Berlin photography museum, historians of the period hoped to find some clarification about the extent of her involvement with the Nazi regime. </p>
<p>But these hopes are likely to be dashed. Riefenstahl, like many other celebrities of the Third Reich, was wise enough to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/apr/29/biography.features">destroy incriminating evidence</a> at the end of World War II and created the image of herself as a naïve opportunist through interviews, autobiographies and – often enough – libel cases.</p>
<p>Riefenstahl’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0726166/?ref_=nv_sr_1">cinematic legacy</a>, particularly in sport journalism, is undeniable. This is why Germany’s most prolific feminist, Alice Schwarzer, has criticised historians and journalists who always bring up Riefenstahl’s past involvement with the Nazis, while supposedly being <a href="https://www.berghahnjournals.com/abstract/journals/gps/31/3/gps310304.xml">more lenient towards male Nazi celebrities</a>.</p>
<p>But this is demonstrably untrue. Male artists, such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Furtw%C3%A4ngler">conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler</a>, have been equally criticised for being <a href="https://youtu.be/FoU-iCT21fc">co-opted</a> by the Nazi regime. Schwarzer may have a point that other artists did not experience the same scrutiny after 1945. But her movies in the 1930s are prime examples of Nazi propaganda. Male filmmakers who produced such brazen propaganda on similar levels, however, got similar treatment.</p>
<p>Riefenstahl would later claim that Goebbels hated her and only Hitler’s patronage spared her from trouble. But this has never been substantially backed up by evidence. Riefenstahl’s acquaintance with Hitler goes back to 1932 when they met for the first time – after she wrote to him requesting a meeting.</p>
<p>Riefenstahl, who made a name for herself in the 1920s as an actress and then as a director in the early 1930s, became a star in the then popular genre of “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_film">mountain movies</a>”. This was a topic dear to the Nazis and other nationalists in Weimar Germany who saw mountaineering – man’s struggle with nature – as both a symbol for Germany’s post-World War I struggle and the social-Darwinistic model of the survival of the fittest. Riefenstahl’s 1932 movie <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022694/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_4">The Blue Light</a>, which she directed and had the leading role in, reportedly became one of Hitler’s favourite movies. Its plot featured some of the main tropes of Nazi ideology: the perils of greed and materialism represented by sinister foreigners.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216470/original/file-20180426-175061-12tykjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216470/original/file-20180426-175061-12tykjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216470/original/file-20180426-175061-12tykjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216470/original/file-20180426-175061-12tykjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216470/original/file-20180426-175061-12tykjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216470/original/file-20180426-175061-12tykjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216470/original/file-20180426-175061-12tykjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Leni Riefenstahl and Adolf Hitler in 1938 at the premiere of her first Olympia movie.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bundesarchiv/Wikimedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Nazi era</h2>
<p>After the Nazi Party came to power in January 1933, Riefenstahl turned her close links to Hitler into a profitable venture. Riefenstahl was commissioned to produce films on the annual Nazi Party rallies in Nuremberg 1933 and 1934, Victory of Faith and Triumph of the Will, respectively. The latter, in particular, is regarded as a cinematic milestone for using novel techniques in visual storytelling. </p>
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<p>Riefenstahl would defend herself after the war by saying that these, like her two movies on the Berlin Olympics, were documentaries rather than propaganda movies – there is no narrator in the film and thus no explicitly stated political agenda. But when you see the films, there is really no need for a narrator. The opening sequence of <a href="https://youtu.be/HVCUsKkXq3Y">Triumph of the Will</a> is a plane carrying Hitler to Nuremberg, to be greeted by an enthusiastic crowd upon landing. This descent from the heavens echoes Nazi propaganda that Hitler was sent by providence to rescue Germany. As renowned art critic <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1975/02/06/fascinating-fascism/?pagination=false&printp">Susan Sontag wrote in 1975</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>In Triumph of the Will, the document (the image) is no longer simply the record of reality; ‘reality’ has been constructed to serve the image.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Her two movies on the Olympic Games carry similar images. According to Riefenstahl, she only wanted to celebrate the aesthetics of athletic bodies – a claim reflected in the title of the second movie: Festival of Beauty. This, obviously, corresponds with the Nazis’ idea of purity and athleticism as signs of the virility and the superiority of the “Aryan” race.</p>
<p>As Sontag points out, Riefenstahl remained true to this ideal after the war, even when no longer focusing on white people. Her 1975 photo book on the Sudanese Nuba tribe also focused on the young, male, muscular body – promoting once more the ideal of a body image that cherishes the healthy and athletic form. In Sontag’s eyes, this focus on athleticism “can be seen as the third in Riefenstahl’s triptych of fascist visuals” – following in the footsteps of her movies on mountains and the Olympics.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216471/original/file-20180426-175047-3g2frw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216471/original/file-20180426-175047-3g2frw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216471/original/file-20180426-175047-3g2frw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216471/original/file-20180426-175047-3g2frw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216471/original/file-20180426-175047-3g2frw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216471/original/file-20180426-175047-3g2frw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216471/original/file-20180426-175047-3g2frw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Riefenstahl filming at the 1936 Olympics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bundesarchiv/Wikimedia</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Faustian pact</h2>
<p>Schwarzer’s attempt to somewhat exculpate Riefenstahl by arguing that she had to cooperate with the Nazis in order to make a career as a woman seems a bit facile. Riefenstahl and the Nazis found each other because they had similar ideas about the body, society and their representation. Riefenstahl may not have been a card-carrying Nazi in the sense of anti-Semitism or thirst for war – although her post-war excuse that she didn’t witness atrocities during her time as war correspondent has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/apr/29/biography.features">debunked by historians</a>. But her aesthetics and her understanding of community and mysticism went hand-in-glove with Nazi ideology. </p>
<p>Worryingly enough, as Sontag pointed out, these aesthetics were rehabilitated in the 1970s with the rise of the body-building movement. Celebrating the beauty of the athletic body became in vogue again, and also led to a rehabilitation of sorts for Riefenstahl. </p>
<p>Her contributions to film history are undeniable. Many techniques that are now seen as common in sports reporting were introduced and championed by her Olympia movies – such as cameras on dollies to follow the athletes on the track or underwater cameras in the swimming and diving competitions to give a perspective to viewers that even spectators in the stadium wouldn’t get. </p>
<p>So maybe Leni Riefenstahl is such a controversial figure because she is both a feminist, and a Nazi, icon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95542/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander von Lünen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The controversial German film-maker was celebrated for her groundbreaking work, but the fact remains she was a prominent Nazi propagandist.Alexander von Lünen, Senior Lecturer in Modern German History, University of HuddersfieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/939222018-03-26T12:50:27Z2018-03-26T12:50:27ZWhy Boris Johnson was right to compare Vladimir Putin’s World Cup with Hitler’s Olympics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211927/original/file-20180326-148736-o9nugc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C116%2C795%2C404&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-G00825,_Berlin,_Olympiade,_Siegerehrung_F%C3%BCnfkampf.jpg">German Federal Archives</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Has Boris Johnson done it again? Following his comparison of Vladimir Putin’s hosting of the World Cup in Russia to the political capital made by Hitler out of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/mar/21/boris-johnson-compares-russian-world-cup-to-hitlers-1936-olympics">Berlin’s hosting of the 1936 Olympics</a> debate has raged as to whether he is right or whether this is another characteristic gaffe by the foreign secretary – another entry into the already crowded political field of <a href="http://time.com/4837881/godwin-law-interview-2017/">Godwin’s Law</a>, which states that sooner or later in an argument someone will always bring up Hitler.</p>
<p>The 1936 Berlin Olympics has developed a powerful mythology. Although it was the preceding democratic <a href="https://www.feldgrau.com/Olympic-Games-Berlin-Germany-1936">Weimar Republic that had won the Games</a> for Berlin, it was the Nazis who would actually host them and they quickly saw their potential for propaganda. They banned Jewish athletes from representing Germany and tried to discourage other countries from sending Jewish or black athletes. They also instituted the famous Olympic torch relay, as a celebration of their claim to have inherited the tradition of European culture and civilisation from the days of the Greeks. </p>
<p>The theme of Aryan masculinity was picked up in the opening section of Olympia – the long, two-part film commissioned by the Nazis from <a href="http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/nazi-germany/leni-riefenstahl/">Leni Riefenstahl</a>, the German director who had made her name with the brilliantly innovative Triumph of the Will, showing the 1934 Nazi Party rally.</p>
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<p>However, not everything went to Hitler’s plan. As is well known, the games were dominated by the black American athlete, <a href="https://www.olympic.org/jesse-owens">Jesse Owens</a>, who won four gold medals. Contrary to widespread belief, Hitler didn’t storm out in disgust rather than congratulate Owens – he had been told off by the Olympic committee for congratulating only German medallists and so had decided not to congratulate anyone. </p>
<p>Perhaps more corrosive to Nazi racial theory than Owens’s success was the friendship <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/jess-owens-anniversary-luz-long-rio-2016-olympics-berlin-1936-nazi-games-7166831.html">Owens struck up with Lutz Long</a>, his blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryan German rival. Even Riefenstahl’s film is more even-handed than one might expect and pays appropriate attention to competitors of all countries, including black athletes. Sport does not always conform to the political wishes of those who make use of it.</p>
<h2>Football and fascism</h2>
<p>The Nazis were far from alone in using sport for political purposes. Franco understood the political importance of football and saw Real Madrid’s period of dominance as a reflection of his regime. Dynamo Moscow’s controversial <a href="http://www.worldsoccer.com/blogs/dynamo-moscow-348657">post-war tour of Britain</a> nearly caused a diplomatic incident, and Italian football is <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6339775.stm">still closely tied up with politics</a>.
Major international sporting events are an irresistible temptation to regimes to trumpet their own culture and achievements – witness the ever-more elaborate extravaganza with which Olympic Games are opened. There is a particular pleasure to be had in putting visiting teams on the spot and obliging them to pay more effusive tribute to their hosts than they might feel happy with.</p>
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<p>In 1938, when England played Germany in Berlin, on instructions from the Foreign Office, the England players <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3128202.stm">lined up and gave the Nazi salute</a>. England won the game 6-3 but from Hitler’s point of view, photographic evidence of the England team embracing his party symbol was of far greater propaganda importance.</p>
<h2>Soft power</h2>
<p>What might be a 21st-century equivalent of that notorious moment? Russia was awarded the 2018 World Cup by <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/34663966">Sepp Blatter’s discredited regime at FIFA,</a> so the very fact it is going ahead is a feather in Putin’s cap. The tournament offers the Russians a chance to erase some of the shame that Russia has been carrying since the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/13/sports/russia-doping-sochi-olympics-2014.html">2014 Winter Olympics at Sochi</a> after which <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/feb/09/russians-last-minute-winter-olympics-appeal-rejected">Russia was banned</a> from the PyeongChang Winter Olympics for drugs cheating. </p>
<p>The Russians have been <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/russia-attacks-poisoned-boris-johnson-over-world-cup-comparison-with-hitler-0scnhx92v">quick to condemn</a> the comparison as a gaffe from a man “poisoned with hate and boorishness”. But, with Putin having just won an election that is <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-election-observers-irregularit/in-russian-election-some-people-say-they-were-ordered-to-vote-idUSKBN1GU0IK">widely regarded as rigged</a>, any acknowledgement of his authority – even a handshake from a winning team captain – can be regarded as a propaganda coup. In the febrile international atmosphere which is quickly developing after the Salisbury poisoning, even footage of players sightseeing in Moscow or St Petersburg can take on a political significance. </p>
<p>As the extent of Russian <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-10/fbi-plans-task-force-to-expose-russian-social-media-manipulation">manipulation of social media</a> for propaganda purposes is becoming clearer, Johnson’s suggestion that Putin will use the World Cup for political capital becomes a no-brainer. Why wouldn’t he? But as the 1936 comparison also suggests, he should be careful – sporting competitions can develop their own narrative, and it won’t necessarily be to Putin’s liking.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93922/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sean Lang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As Hitler showed in 1936, there’s nothing like a massive sporting spectacle to promote your regime.Sean Lang, Senior Lecturer in History, Anglia Ruskin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/619042016-07-27T10:44:33Z2016-07-27T10:44:33ZAll the Olympics are a stage, and all the athletes merely players: the rich history of the modern Games<p>The Olympics transfix us. Six in every ten people in the world – including both you, dear reader, and me – watched the London 2012 Olympics. Use of the word Olympics increased in relative frequency 3,300% between 1924 and 1984. But what are the Olympics to us, how are we to read them socially and politically?</p>
<p>The Olympic Games are a theatre — sometimes farce, sometimes tragedy, theatre of the absurd, opera buffa, reality TV, morality play or soap opera — where geopolitical, social and technological dramas are played out. </p>
<p>The Olympic village (which first appeared in the 1932 Los Angeles Games) is itself a microworld, where all nationalities, creeds and colours come together and everyday dramas of sex, politics, human achievement and human weakness are played out. </p>
<p>Olympic competition is itself a media-constructed reality.</p>
<h2>The Olympics as cinema</h2>
<p>There’s always been an easy spillover between the Olympics and the mass media. Athletes have slipped seamlessly into media celebrity. Olympic weightlifter Harold Sakata won a silver medal in the 1948 London Olympics, but became better known as Oddjob in the James Bond film Goldfinger. </p>
<p>Less known is British freestyle wrestler Ken Richmond, the bloke who bangs the huge bronze gong at the start of J. Arthur Rank films. Appropriately, he won a bronze medal at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics.</p>
<p>But cinematic links with the Olympics go much further back. Norwegian figure skater Sonja Henie (gold medallist in three successive Olympics from 1928) became one of the highest-paid actors in the world. </p>
<p>Buster Crabbe (US gold medallist swimmer 1932) appeared in over 100 movies. Like Crabbe, shot-putter Herman Brix (silver medal, Amsterdam 1928), swimmer Johnny Weissmuller (five gold medals 1924-1928) and decathlete champion Glenn Morris (1936) all appeared as Tarzan, the last <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarzan%27s_Revenge">alongside US Olympic swimmer Eleanor Holm</a> (1928 and 1932). </p>
<p>Weissmuller, fondly remembered by children of my generation as Jungle Jim, featured in Tarzan’s celebrated <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Bc7KDyLV80">nude swim</a>, ostensibly with Maureen O’Sullivan, but actually with stand-in Olympic and world champion swimmer Josephine McKim.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Buster Crabbe, US gold medallist, in Tarzan the Fearless (1933).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tom Simpson/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Olympics have also been the subject <em>of</em> film. Glenn “Tarzan” Morris also appeared in Leni Riefenstahl’s superb documentary of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030522/">Olympia (1938)</a>, considered one of the best films ever made. </p>
<p>The classic <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082158/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Chariots of Fire (1981)</a> was a morality play looking at the clash of spiritual and worldly values, when the evangelical Scottish athlete Eric Liddell refused to run on Sunday and sacrificed his chance of winning the 100-metre sprint. Liddell later returned to his birthplace in China as a missionary, only to die in a Japanese internment camp weeks before the liberation. </p>
<p>Spielberg’s dark <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0408306/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Munich (2005)</a> explored the massacre of Israeli athletes in the 1972 Munich Games, and more recently <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106611/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Cool Runnings (1993)</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1083452/">Eddie the Eagle (2016)</a> have recounted some of the farcical aspects of the Games – the equally improbable efforts of a Jamaican bobsleigh team and an English ski-jumper.</p>
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<p>Even Olympic venues are like film sets, scattered across the world’s most exotic destinations from Paris to Rio. Just like film sets, they’re often improvised and dismantled soon after the Games have finished. </p>
<p>Hitler’s architect, Albert Speer, improvised the 1936 Olympic stadium using 152 anti-aircraft searchlights pointed straight upwards. The <a href="http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/artdok/37/3/Teil_2.pdf">Lichtdom</a>, said British ambassador Sir Nevile Henderson, was “like being inside a cathedral of ice”. </p>
<p>Hermann Göring, never a fan of high art (“Whenever I hear the word ‘culture’, I reach for my revolver”), was unimpressed; Speer had commandeered all the anti-aircraft searchlights in Berlin, leaving the city unprotected. </p>
<p>The Berlin Olympic Village was converted to military barracks soon after the Games; perhaps the Allies should have read the signs. </p>
<h2>… as political drama</h2>
<p>In the ancient Olympics, warring states agreed to lay down their arms and establish an Olympic peace — Pax Olympica. In the modern era, the Games become a stylised working out of geopolitical tensions. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/spirit/english/e_spirit">George Orwell</a> famously described sport as “war without the bullets”:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you wanted to add to the vast fund of ill-will existing in the world at this moment, you could hardly do it better than by a series of football matches between Jews and Arabs, Germans and Czechs, Indians and British, Russians and Poles, and Italians and Jugoslavs, each match to be watched by a mixed audience of 100,000 spectators.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Olympic nations represent a kind of global geopolitics in miniature, shifting, coalescing and dividing as global politics change. The old Soviet Union is now represented by 15 national Olympic committees, the former Yugoslavia by seven, and the two Germanies by one. </p>
<p>There are, in fact, more Olympic “nations” – 206 – than there are countries in the <a href="http://www.un.org/en/member-states/">United Nations – 193</a>. </p>
<p>The International Olympic Committee (IOC) crystallises and provides the imprimatur for new geopolitical realities: accepting Japan back into the fold of civilised nations in 1952, and Germany in 1956; rehabilitating South Korea after the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Park_Chung-hee">10.26 assassination</a> of president Park Chung-Hee by awarding it the 1988 Games; acknowledging the Soviet Union and Communist China in 1952; and refusing recognition of the Japanese puppet state Manchukuo in 1936. </p>
<p>While the IOC Charter strictly forbids direct political interference in national Olympic committees, there is a wide gap between theory and practice. After the Soviet soccer team lost to heterodox Yugoslavia at the Helsinki Games in 1952 (a 5-5 draw; then 1-3 in the replay), Stalin disbanded the team, who were provided with new homes “inside the Arctic Circle”. </p>
<p>He had a historical precedent: in 1912, Tsar Nicholas dissolved the Russian soccer team after their 16-0 loss to Germany in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. Clearly, Stalin set the bar a bit higher than the tsar.</p>
<p>The Games have also been the stage for celebrated political set pieces. I was 10 months old when there was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_in_the_Water_match">blood in the water</a> during the waterpolo clash between the Soviet Union and Hungary in the 1956 Melbourne Games. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131921/original/image-20160726-23692-1y7moqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131921/original/image-20160726-23692-1y7moqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131921/original/image-20160726-23692-1y7moqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131921/original/image-20160726-23692-1y7moqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131921/original/image-20160726-23692-1y7moqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131921/original/image-20160726-23692-1y7moqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131921/original/image-20160726-23692-1y7moqf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">American sprinters John Carlos and Tommie Smith’s black power salute at the 1968 Mexican Olympic Games.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Carlos,_Tommie_Smith,_Peter_Norman_1968cr.jpg">By Angelo Cozzi via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Hungarians, on their long sea voyage to the Antipodes, were unaware of the Soviet invasion of their homeland. The clash was a bloody affair, with the Hungarians ultimately winning 4-0 and going on to win the gold medal. </p>
<p>In 1968, the Mexican military killed at least 49 students protesting against the Games in the Tlatelolco Massacre. Mexico also saw the Olympic podium used to stage the celebrated black power salute by John Carlos and Tommie Smith, with the Australian silver medallist Peter Norman stood by.</p>
<p>In 1972, militants from the Palestinian Black September movement murdered 11 Israeli athletes in the Munich Games village. </p>
<h2>… as feminist realism</h2>
<p>Women first appeared in the 1900 Olympics. The 22 women among the 997 athletes were limited to ladylike sports: tennis, sailing, croquet, equestrian and golf. Over the years, the number of sports open to women has gradually increased, bringing, in 2016, the unthinkable — women’s rugby. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131924/original/image-20160726-31195-19n1x4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131924/original/image-20160726-31195-19n1x4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131924/original/image-20160726-31195-19n1x4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131924/original/image-20160726-31195-19n1x4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131924/original/image-20160726-31195-19n1x4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1053&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131924/original/image-20160726-31195-19n1x4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1053&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131924/original/image-20160726-31195-19n1x4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1053&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">English tennis player Charlotte Cooper, who, in 1900, became the first female Olympic champion.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charlotte_Cooper.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Today, women constitute about 40% to 45% of Olympic competitors.</p>
<p>There is one unisex sport (equestrian), although at various times both sailing and rifle shooting have been unisex. And there is one sport where, thankfully, men have not been allowed to compete: synchronised swimming. </p>
<p>In others sports, there are odd historical hangovers of sex differences: there is no 1,500-metre swim for women; women compete in the heptathlon rather than the decathlon; and men’s and women’s gymnastics are radically different. </p>
<p>One can only say that there’s been a long march towards gender equality, but we wouldn’t want to take things too far too fast, given that the Australian Matildas, one of the best women’s soccer teams in the world, were recently <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/05/25/matildas-beaten-7-0-by-newcastle-jets-under-15-boys-team/">beaten 7-0 by an under-15 boys’ team</a>.</p>
<p>Gender issues have been played out in the Olympic theatre in other ways. Indeed, the Olympics have more than anything brought into question the whole notion of binary gender and what it means to be a man or a woman. </p>
<p>This issue poses a particular quandary for the Olympics. On the one hand, as the Matildas well know, it’s just not fair to have men competing against women in most sports. On the other hand, it’s not the place of the IOC to be telling people what sex they are.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132111/original/image-20160727-7058-qk84aw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132111/original/image-20160727-7058-qk84aw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=752&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132111/original/image-20160727-7058-qk84aw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=752&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132111/original/image-20160727-7058-qk84aw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=752&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132111/original/image-20160727-7058-qk84aw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132111/original/image-20160727-7058-qk84aw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132111/original/image-20160727-7058-qk84aw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mary Edith Louise Weston in 1936, before gender change operations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Weston_(athlete)#/media/File:Mary_Edith_Louise_Weston_1936b.jpg">Unknown via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sex testing was first requested by IOC executive member, and later president, Avery Brundage in 1936, over concerns about British javelin and discus champion Mary Louise Edith Weston. In 1936, Mary had a sex change to become Mark. It ran in the family; a year later, Mark’s elder sister Hilda also had gender re-assignment treatment. </p>
<p>The most famous transgender athlete — until Caitlyn Jenner — was Stanislawa Walasiewickz, a Polish sprinter who won the gold medal in the 100-metre dash in the 1932 Olympics, and silver in Berlin. Later, living as an American under the name Stella Walsh, she was found upon her death (she was shot during an armed robbery in 1981) to have male genitalia.</p>
<p>At the same Games, German Dora Ratjen competed in the high jump, finishing fourth, but was later found to be intersex.</p>
<p>Sex testing initially consisted of a physical examination, literally a “nude parade” of women. Chromosomal testing was introduced in 1968, and in 2012 hormonal testing for abnormal levels of testosterone began. </p>
<p>The official IOC position is that rather than sex testing, this is a test to determine if certain athletes are “unfairly advantaged” by an accident of birth. One can only say that this is a tricky position to maintain: just about every athlete is unfairly advantaged by an accident of birth, certainly relative to you and me, at least. That’s why they’re elite athletes.</p>
<p>In 2009, after South African runner Caster Semenya won gold in the women’s 800-metre run, the International Amateur Athletics Federation began receiving emails from people who had doubts about Semenya’s gender because of her masculine appearance. Some unkind commentators even pointed out that her name was <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/caster-semenya-gender-storm-is-the-answer-790360">an anagram of “Yes, a secret man”</a>. </p>
<p>The results of chromosomal tests were never released, but Semenya was cleared to run again. After winning the silver medal in London, Semenya will be among the favourites in Rio. Watch this space.</p>
<h2>… as romcom</h2>
<p>The Olympic stage is a theatre of sex in another way: it is a festival of youth where the athletes compete, celebrate and fornicate. And <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnclarke/2012/07/16/who-will-win-the-sex-olympics/#7e6efd6d18c6">fornicate they do</a>, by all accounts. </p>
<p>The London Games provided 150,000 condoms — 15 per athlete — for the 17-day event. That’s enough for 30 couplings per pair, or 1.7 couplings per day. </p>
<p>But Olympic love has flourished even in condom-less environments, and in those more innocent days when men’s and women’s living quarters were separated, as they still are for Muslim athletes. </p>
<p>In 1956, US gold medal hammer thrower Hal Connolly met and fell in love with Czech discus champion Olga Fikotová, a cross-Iron Curtain romance that blossomed into a marriage. </p>
<p>The scenario was repeated 48 years later in Athens when gold medallist rifleman Matt Emmons (US) fell for Czech riflewoman Katerina Kurková. Perhaps it was a shotgun wedding. </p>
<p>There are, in fact, dozens of Olympic lovers, most famously legendary Czech distance runner Emil Zatokpek and his wife Dana, a gold-medal-winning javelin thrower, who were witnesses to the Connolly wedding.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132115/original/image-20160727-5645-ovimdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132115/original/image-20160727-5645-ovimdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132115/original/image-20160727-5645-ovimdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132115/original/image-20160727-5645-ovimdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=856&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132115/original/image-20160727-5645-ovimdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1075&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132115/original/image-20160727-5645-ovimdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1075&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132115/original/image-20160727-5645-ovimdh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1075&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Games.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_de_Coubertin#/media/File:Pierre_de_Coubertin_Anefo2.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>… as morality play</h2>
<p>The founder of the Games, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_de_Coubertin">Pierre de Coubertin</a>, envisaged them as a competition between gentleman amateurs, playing fairly and competing on a level playing field, figuratively and literally. </p>
<p>Native American athlete Jim Thorpe was relieved of his two gold medals from the 1912 Stockholm Games when it turned out he had accepted money for playing baseball. </p>
<p>But the myth of professionalism, freighted with classist assumptions, was a lost cause from the start. Gradually, begrudgingly, the Games were opened up to full professionals. </p>
<p>Fairness also proved to be an elusive ideal. </p>
<p>Over 50 Olympic athletes have been stripped of their medals, mainly for doping. Most famously, they included US swimmer Rick DeMont at the Montreal Games, Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson at Seoul, US sprinter Marion Jones, who lost her five medals from Atlanta and Sydney, and US cyclists Lance Armstrong and Tyler Hamilton in Sydney and Athens. </p>
<p>The vexed question of artificial performance enhancement has plagued the Olympics, and raises a basic moral question: what does “natural” mean? What is the difference, one might ask, between taking the blood-booster EPO and training in altitude tents, which has the same effect, or for that matter having a natural genetic variant? </p>
<p>Although we think of cheating mainly as a pharmacological indiscretion, there have also been interesting cases of “technology doping”. </p>
<p>Boris Onishchenko, a Russian pentathlete, rigged his electrofoil at the 1976 Olympics to mark a score before he actually hit anyone, eliciting a protest from the British. He was known thereafter as “Boris Disonishchenko”. Soviet President Brezhnev was not happy, and Onishchenko was last seen working as a taxi driver in Kiev.</p>
<p>The issue of technological performance enhancement was raised again when the “blade runner” Oscar Pistorius became the first disabled track and field athlete to compete at the able-bodied games. Several sports scientists argued that his blades provided him with an unfair advantage, allowing a greater return of elastic energy. </p>
<h2>After the theatre</h2>
<p>By September, the stage will be dismantled, and our revels will be ended. Our athletes will melt into air, into thin air. The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces shall dissolve and, like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind. </p>
<p>All that will remain will be the cold wind whistling through the empty stadiums and the athletes’ Potemkin villages. Until, that is, we switch on our televisions for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61904/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Olds receives funding from the ARC and the NHMRC. In the past he has also been funded by the Australian Sports Commission.</span></em></p>The Olympic Games are a theatre — sometimes farce, sometimes tragedy, reality TV, morality play or soap opera — where geopolitical, social and technological dramas are played out.Tim Olds, Professor of Health Sciences, University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.