Olympic Games

The Olympic Games is an international sports festival that celebrates athletes from all over the
world. The goal of the Olympics is to encourage the practice of sports around the globe and
promote world peace through sports. The Olympics hosts events in the summer and the winter.
The Olympics are held in a different location every four years.

More than eleven thousand athletes from 207 countries participated in the Rio Summer Olympics
in 2016. Ninety-one nations and nearly three thousand athletes took part in the 2018
PyeongChang Winter Games. Previously, only war caused the postponement or cancellation of
the sports festival. However, in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted the scheduled
summer games in Tokyo. The International Olympic Commission (IOC) postponed the Olympics
until 2021.

Background
The Olympic Games originated in ancient Greece in the year 776 B.C. The event was held every
four years in Olympia as part of a religious festival in honor of the god Zeus. The main event in
the first Olympics was a footrace. In later years, other sports were added such as wrestling, the
javelin throw, the long jump, boxing, and chariot racing. After the Roman Empire conquered
Greece in the middle of the second century B.C., support waned for the event, and the quality of
the competitions began to decline. Roman Emperor Theodosius I banned all pagan festivals in
393 A.D., which officially brought an end to the Olympics after almost twelve centuries.
Pierre de Coubertin, a French educator and historian, is recognized as the founder of the modern
Olympics. The IOC was established in 1894 to organize the Olympics and encourage the
development of sports around the world. The first modern Olympic Games opened in Athens,
Greece, in April 1896 with male athletes from fourteen countries competing in forty-three
sporting events such as weightlifting, track and field, cycling, swimming, and tennis.
The Olympics have expanded since the inaugural event to include the Summer Games, the
Winter Games, and the Youth Olympics. The Summer Olympics present competitions in thirty-
three sports, with participating athletes from more than two hundred countries and billions of
viewers from around the world.
Hosting the Olympics
Candidate cities go through a multi-step process to become an official host of the Olympics.
During the bidding process, which spans a two-year period, the cities present a proposal to the
IOC with their vision and concept for the games. During this time, the cities must also build local
support for hosting the games. The IOC analyzes the city’s ability to host the games successfully.
At the end of the process, the IOC votes to determine the upcoming official host city.
It takes years for a city to prepare to host the Olympics. Previously, the IOC had a seven-year
period in place between awarding the Olympics to a city and that city hosting the event.
However, in 2019 the IOC made some changes to its bidding process to allow more flexibility in
the timeline, so that cities can have more time to prepare if needed.
Hosting the Olympic Games offers many benefits to a host city, such as the creation of new jobs,
infrastructure improvements, and additional revenue from tourism. The 2000 Sydney Games has
been recognized as one of the most successful Olympics in modern history. The city reaped
several gains from hosting the Olympics, from environmental benefits to transportation
development and improved infrastructure. The Olympics have increased the gross domestic
product (GDP) of New South Wales by an estimated $4.8-$5.3 billion and increased the number
of tourists to the region by 1.6 million each year. The event also led to the creation of Australia’s
first large-scale urban water recycling system and one of the largest urban parklands in the
country.
While some host cities have reaped benefits, others have been burdened from hosting the event.
Years later, Rio de Janeiro still struggles financially from hosting the 2016 games. The city dealt
with lingering debts, the costs of maintenance for abandoned buildings, underequipped public
services, and a rise in crime. The city also faced environmental issues, such as polluted
waterways. Brazil’s federal government issued a $900 million bailout to finance the costs of
policing the event. Rio de Janeiro declared a state of financial emergency before the Games and
struggled to pay public employees. Economic woes related to the Olympics have been
contributed to rising violent crime in the region.

Cultural clashes can also make it difficult for a city to host the Olympics. In 2014 the Sochi
Olympic Winter Games brought a slew of controversies, from protests about Russia’s restrictive
laws on homosexuality to concerns about Russia’s environmental policies and human rights
violations. Displacement also became an issue. Human Rights Watch estimated that two
thousand families were displaced as Russia prepared to host the Olympics.

The benefits of hosting the Olympics often fail to offset the costs. The 2012 London Summer
Olympics cost $15 billion, the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics cost $21.9 billion, the 2016 Rio
Summer Olympics cost $13.2 billion, and the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics cost $13 billion.
Estimates put the cost of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics at $25 billion. The postponement due to
COVID-19 could add another $2.7 billion to the total cost, which would make the Tokyo Games
one of the most expensive in modern Olympic history.

In recent years, a number of cities have dropped out of bidding for the Olympics because of
opposition from the public as well as trepidation about the financial burden. In 2017, Budapest,
Boston, and Hamburg withdrew their bids to host the Olympics. Only two candidate cities
remained: Los Angeles and Paris. In an unprecedented move, the IOC awarded the next two
Summer Olympics to those cities (Paris in 2024 and Los Angeles in 2028).

As interest in hosting the Olympics waned, the IOC began to take steps to increase its financial
support to host cities. The IOC also introduced measures to reduce the cost of bidding and
hosting the event. However, some remain skeptical about the sustainability of the current
Olympic Games model. Proponents of holding the Olympics at permanent sites argue that this
method would be more efficient and reduce the environmental damage of building infrastructure
for the event in cities around the world. Others argue that permanent host sites would diminish
the global mission of the Olympics. Some have suggested scaling down the size of the Olympics
to make the event more sustainable. Although the IOC is working with local organizers to scale
down the postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the committee has not made any plans to alter the
current Olympic model in the future.

Geopolitics and Activism at the Games

The IOC partners with governmental and non-governmental institutions as well as United
Nations (UN) agencies to promote social change and development through sports. One such
initiative is the IOC Refugee Olympic Team. Amidst the global refugee crisis that has displaced
millions of people around the world, the IOC created a team for displaced athletes in 2015. The
first Refugee Olympic Team competed in the Rio Olympics in 2016. In 2017 the IOC created the
Olympic Refuge Foundation, which creates accessible facilities and develops sporting activities
in displaced communities.

Although the IOC strives to remain politically neutral, many have used the Olympics to engage
in political affairs. The 1936 Berlin Olympics prompted controversy because of the rise of
Naziism in Germany. The United States considered pulling out of the Olympics because of
Germany’s discrimination against Jewish athletes. Adolf Hitler (1889–1945), the leader of the
Nazi Party, intended to use the Olympics to prove the existence of Aryan racial superiority.
African American sprinter Jesse Owens (1913–1980) won four gold medals and set three world
records at the 1936 Olympics, becoming a sporting legend and disproving Hitler’s theory.
World affairs also dominated the1968 Mexico City Summer Olympics. In 1967 Harry Edwards,
a San Jose State professor, organized the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR).
Originally, the purpose of the OPHR was for black athletes to boycott the Olympics to protest
racial segregation in the United States. Eventually, the project evolved into a larger effort against
inequality worldwide. In the lead up to the 1968 Olympics, the United States was embroiled in
protests about civil rights. Mexico also experienced a rise in student protests during this time.
Ten days before the Olympics, Mexican government forces opened fire on student protesters in
the capital. Amidst this strife, US sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos, two organizers of the
OPHR, planned to make a statement about equality at the Olympics. When they won gold and
bronze medals in the 200-meter race, the two athletes decided to take off their shoes and raise
black-gloved fists on the podium during the US national anthem. The image of their silent protest
has become a symbol of athletic activism.
World events continued to impact the Olympics in later years. By hosting the 1972 Munich
Olympics, Germany hoped to remove the stigma of the 1936 Berlin Games, which had come to
represent Hitler and Nazi propaganda. Unfortunately, the Olympics were overshadowed by the
massacre of Israel’s Olympic team. On September 5, 1972, in the midst of the Games, eight
Palestinians from the Black September group raided the Olympic village in an operation that
resulted in the death of eleven Israelis. The Olympics were put on hold for thirty-four hours in
the midst of the crisis. In a controversial move, the IOC decided to resume the event after the
massacre. The IOC did not officially memorialize the victims of the massacre until forty-four
years later at the start of the 2016 Rio Olympics.
During the Cold War years, tensions between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their allies
impacted the Olympics. After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, the
United States decided to boycott the Summer Olympics in Moscow in 1980. China, Canada,
West Germany, and numerous South American nations also boycotted the event. Four years
later, the 1984 Summer Olympics were held in Los Angeles, and the Soviet Union boycotted the
event in retaliation.

Geopolitical strife also befell the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics. After the IOC selected Seoul to
host the 1988 Games, North Korea demanded to co-host the event. The IOC rejected this request.
In an attempt to sabotage the event, North Korea planned a terrorist attack to spark fear about the
upcoming Olympics. North Korea ordered the bombing of a plane that originated in Iraq and was
headed for Seoul. The November 29,1987 attack killed 104 passengers and eleven crew members
on board. Despite the terrorist attack, the 1988 Olympics proceeded in Seoul as scheduled. North
Korea and its allies boycotted the event. After years of ongoing tensions between the two
nations, North and South Korea began to show solidarity at the Olympics in the twenty-first
century, most recently marching under a united flag at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.

Although geopolitics have impacted many Olympic Games throughout history, the IOC has long
advocated for political neutrality. A rise in athletic activism in recent years has prompted the
IOC to revisit Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter. Rule 50 bans athletes from participating in
protests at Olympic sites during the event. The IOC has announced that it is consulting with
athletes from around the world to revise Rule 50. The committee is scheduled to finalize Rule 50
of the charter by the first quarter of 2021.
Main Ideas
 The Olympic Games originated in ancient Greece as an event held every four years in
Olympia. The event was part of a religious festival in honor of the god Zeus.
 The modern Olympic Games is an international sports festival that celebrates athletes
from all over the world. The Olympics are held in a different location every four years.
 In 2016 more than eleven thousand athletes from 207 countries participated in the Rio
Summer Olympics.
 Hosting the Olympic Games brings many advantages to a host city, including job
creation, infrastructure improvements, and additional revenue from tourism.
 Although the IOC strives to remain politically neutral, many nations have used the
Olympics to engage in political affairs.
 In the midst of the global refugee crisis, the IOC created a team for displaced athletes in
2015 and the Olympic Refuge Foundation in 2017.
Critical Thinking Questions
 Why has interest in hosting the Olympics waned in recent years?
 In your opinion, should the Olympics be held at one permanent site or move to different
cities every four years? Explain your answer.
 Do you believe that athletes should be allowed to participate in acts of protest during the
Olympics? Why or why not?