Staff Writer Sam Lord provides an insight to the effects of The Olympics and the IOC on nations imposing geopolitical power, as well as the ramifications for international relations.
The Olympics have tended to become highly politicised despite the organisers’ insistence they should be nothing more than a sporting event – and this is set to continue in Paris next year.
It’s hard to keep politics out of anything, let alone the world’s largest sporting competition. Yet the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has always been strict about trying to maintain a politically neutral stance. It has always tried to keep the Games to the sports, but the Games have long been more than just a sporting event.
The Games are a showpiece – a promotion for a host city (or country). They will continue to be a way for countries to expand geopolitical power. But it’s a delicate balance and can just as easily work against a host’s favour. Similarly, external geopolitical influences can affect a Games’ legacy.
An early example of this was the Berlin Games (1936). Despite initial fears of a boycott, they were a massive success for Nazi Germany. Successful organisation and warm hospitality ensured praise for Germany. This led to a tacit acceptance of the authoritarian state by some – a New York Times article reported that the Games put Germany “back in the fold of nations”.
But hosting is not always easy for geopolitically aspiring nations. The result can be a humiliation. Moscow (1980) saw the largest boycott in the Games’ history. The Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 led the US and 60 other countries to stay away. The sports were a disappointment as a result. The anticipated athletic track events were plagued by ‘overly cautious running and unimpressive times’. All the Soviets could boast was the most lopsided final medal tally since 1904.
This trend has continued into the 21st century, with more focus on promoting soft power. There’s now more of an attempt to attract tourism, global investment and to smoothe diplomatic relations, and less of a display of military or economic might. It’s become so prevalent in the 21st century we’ve given a name to it: ‘sportswashing’.
The most blatant form of this is the opening ceremony. Once more or less just an introduction to the Games, it now outshines the sports themselves. It’s the best way for a host to impact global public perception.
China mastered the opening ceremony in 2008 (Beijing) with an extraordinary display of its culture, military and economic power. It brought a turnaround in public perception of China, previously regarded as an isolationist and communist dictatorship, synonymous with the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre. The years following the 2008 Games saw a period of increased investment and closer political ties with China.
Beijing hosted the Winter Games again 14 years later. But this time the world had lost its positive impression of China. The Covid pandemic had shown the financial fragility of the up-and-coming economic superpower and any positive press China had gained in the West since 2008 had been lost due to its human rights abuses in Hong Kong; the treatment of Uighurs in Xinjiang province, and its aggressions in the South China Sea and around Taiwan.
These geopolitical concerns doomed the 2022 games and if anything, raised concerns over how the IOC could allow a nation with a history of such severe human rights abuses to host in the first place. Yet it was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that really overshadowed the Games.
Russia, the Games and Sportswashing
The Russians attempted a similar Olympic strategy to the Chinese, spending the most on an Olympic Games in history for the Sochi Winter Games (2014). They found out the hard way that the Winter Games have never been a great investment (they have always trailed behind the summer ones in popularity, despite being vastly more expensive to hold). The games were also overshadowed by the annexation of Crimea the same year.
Russia found more success four years later with the FIFA World Cup (another ‘apolitical’ global sport tournament) attracting international investment and a legitimisation of Putin’s authoritarian regime within the world system. (Astonishing, considering that the same year saw Russia administer the first nerve-agent attack within another nation’s borders since World War Two with the Salisbury poisonings).
Although not enough to remove Western suspicion of Russia, its use of sports events helped bring a degree of acceptance on the global scene. This backfired six years later as the war in Ukraine finally disgraced Russia. No manner of sportswashing could turn public favour towards Russia now. The war now poses a fundamental issue for the IOC and the 2024 Games (and potentially beyond).
Paris 2024’s great overshadowing
Russia is already prohibited from the Olympic Games since 2019, after the infamous doping scandals that came to light throughout the 2010s. Russian athletes are allowed only to compete independently.
The IOC has gone back and forth on the issue of Russian inclusion. In February 2022, just after the invasion, the IOC recommended the immediate ban of Russian and Belarussian athletes from international tournaments. It didn’t go so far as to ban all Russian/Belarussian athletes outright, it was left to the relevant organisations to make their own individual final decisions.
In the lead up to Paris 2024, the IOC has been more open to the idea of Russian/Belarussian athletes competing as neutrals. IOC head Thomas Bach has reiterated his support many times for Russian athletes to compete.
The opposition argument to the IOC says that the inclusion of athletes from an aggressor nation in an ongoing war would add a dark layer to the Games. French Olympic commentator Alain Lunzenfichter believes Russian inclusion could damage the Paris Games, seeing it become “the War Games”. Supporters of Russian inclusion have drawn on whatabout-isms, including UN Special Rapporteur Alexandra Xanthaki, who made the comparison with the USA’s ‘illegal war in [Iraq] 2003’.
The fear is there may be a repeat of the mass boycott in the 1980 Games. In February 2023, Poland’s sports minister claimed up to 40 countries could boycott the 2024 Games. Whilst this number may be an overconfident projection, the IOC may be faced with a problem: the committees of the five Nordic countries issued a joint statement in opposing Russian participation, and a further six nations have so far threatened a boycott (including Denmark, Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic states). Speculation remains that other powerhouses like the UK, Canada and Japan might also boycott. Host nation France has so far stayed silent.
The Olympic Council of Asia has already invited Russian and Belarussian athletes back for the January Hangzhou Asian Games (though under neutral flags, and without the possibility of winning medals). And in March, The Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa (ANOCA) unanimously decided to support Russian/Belarussian participation in all competitions. Even the US are for Russian athletes competing under strict criteria. This has led some to deem this as a Eurocentric issue. Though any claim to this would be too reactionary, many European nations have already advocated for Russian participation, notably Czechia and Germany. These are France’s Games after all, not Russia’s.
It does seem likely that Russian athletes will be allowed to compete next year, with a major boycott unlikely. Nevertheless, the issue will cast a shadow over the Paris Games, and may be cemented into the legacy of the 2024 Games.
The IOC’s choice of political neutrality is ultimately necessary for the Games to run more smoothly. No doubt if the IOC did start to take political stances, boycotts would become more common. Nevertheless, the ease with which the Games can be exploited by host nations for political interest, and how external affairs can overshadow them, has shown the impossibility of keeping politics out of the Olympics.
