Let me
say from the beginning that I like the Olympics. Indeed, I’m a big fan, having
covered eight of them (Summer Games in Los Angeles, Seoul, Barcelona, Atlanta
and Sydney; Winter Games at Calgary, Albertville and Lillehammer), and rank the
experiences among my most memorable. For
color, excitement and quality of athletic performance they can’t be surpassed. Many
a grizzled pro has been touched by the Olympic aura and known to shed a tear on
a medals platform.
What I
don’t like is the International Olympic Committee, which puts together the
events. It’s a self-appointed,
self-perpetuating body that’s responsible only to itself, and a bunch of
boodlers to boot. Its allegiance isn’t to the athletes or to sport in general
but to itself—it’s perks, profits and whatever it can plunder. The world would
be better off without it.
For proof
one need look no further than Olympiad XXXII (don’t you love those Roman
numerals?), set to begin next Friday (July 23) in Tokyo. Already delayed for a
year, it’s an Olympics that few really want, proceeding amidst a covid pandemic
that has reached crisis proportions in its host country. Foreign visitors have
been barred and domestic attendance sharply curtailed. Competitors must be
masked and observe social distancing when they aren’t on their fields of play,
even among their teammates. They’ve been asked to show up, perform and get out,
with mingling or loitering not encouraged. So much for the international amity
the Games are supposed to promote.
Spectators must be masked throughout their
visits. No cheering or shouting will be permitted, although one no knows how
those edicts will be enforced. Be advised, though, that prime game seats will
be filled by the VIP throng that always accompanies the Games— IOC
functionaries, sports’ federation bureaucrats and sponsors and their pals. It’s
estimated they’ll be more numerous than the 11,500 or so men and women who will
compete. There’s no room for athletes’ families but plenty for them, and in
Tokyo’s best hotels. The latter perk is ever the case.
The opposition to these Games has
been most pronounced in Japan, a wealthy country with a disciplined population
but one that was slow to react to the pandemic. Distribution of vaccines was hindered
by the government’s refusal to accept international efficacy tests, insisting
instead on ones involving only Japanese, and at first it allowed only
physicians and nurses to administer the shots. Vaccines finally are widely
available but the national vaccination rate of less than 20% lags well behind
that of other developed lands, and hospitalizations have risen sharply of late.
Ashai Shimbun, the country’s leading newspaper, last month called for the Games
to be canceled on public-safety grounds. So did the Toyko Medical
Practitioners’ Association.
Local opposition also has an
economic basis. Like just about every recent Summer Games Tokyo’s costs far
exceeded expectations, reportedly about doubling its $15 billion initial budget.
The IOC put up only $1.5 billion, leaving the Japanese government and private interests
holding the bag, and the ban on most foreign visitors rules out much recapture
through tourism spending. By contrast, the IOC makes most of its income from
the awarded-in-advance sale of TV rights—coming to about $4 billion this time
around—and will make out fine if the Games go off on schedule.
IOC members also do all right in
the pocket-stuffing department, with bribery instances and allegations
attending every recent Games, usually involving the awarding of the host cities.
In this one, the chairman of the Tokyo Organization Committee had to resign
when a French investigation showed his group made a $2 million payment to a
firm run by the son of a prominent IOC member. And that’s just the one that
came to light. “Swag bags” at IOC functions are famous for their opulence. No
IOC member ever exited an airliner from the rear, it’s said.
It’s no wonder, then, that the
“show must go on” mentality that’s long animated the Games also has obtained in
this one. Hey, the show went on in Munich in 1972 after terrorists kidnapped
and killed 11 Israeli athletes, and merely hiccuped in Atlanta in 1996 after a
bomb blast in an outdoor evening concert in Olympic Plaza killed two people and
injured more than 100. What’s a little flu compared to that?
The same ethos governs the way
Olympic competitions are run. Putin’s Russia made a farce of the 2014 Winter
Games it hosted in Sochi by sending out a battalion of doped-up athletes to
dominate the medals board. Then it tried to hide its misdeeds with a B-Movie
scheme to swap “clean” urine for dirty by passing the samples through a hole in
the wall of the Games’ testing lab. It later doubled down on that offense by
hindering efforts of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to investigate it.
A few sports federations, including the one
governing track and field, booted the Russians from their events, but the
harshest penalty the IOC could muster was to prohibit the Russian flag and
anthem from its parades and victory stands.
Russian athletes competed In Rio in 2016 under those terms and will
again in Tokyo under the supposedly neutral banner of the Russian Olympic
Committee (ROC). Better for business if
you keep ‘em in, don’t you know?
Some sports, such as basketball, ice
hockey, soccer, skiing, boxing and tennis, are so thoroughly international they
don’t need the Olympic platform. Most of
the others stage annual world championships whose titles equal Olympic gold in achievement
if not acclaim. If they seek a bigger
stage those activities could combine their events every four years and sell a TV package.
But yeah¸ I know, that probably
ain’t gonna happen, so we must hold our noses to enjoy the Games. I suppose it’s
possible for the IOC to reform itself, but its scam is too successful for that.
Such is life.
