How I learned to love the Olympics
Scott Flipse
Urbanities
The Salt Lake City Winter Olympics will be long remembered for its politics, plots and intrigues. I will confess that the various controversies have interested me more than the Games themselves. I'm sure there have been enough inspiring moments to fill NBC's post-Olympic video, but the fortunes of Apolo Ohno interested me less than the secret deals made by French judge Marie "tender flower" Le Gougne. The tribulations of Michelle Kwan transfixed me less than the Russian Olympic delegation's press conference that turned into a Mike Tysonesque free-for-all.
The politics of sports, the fierce nationalism of international competition and the undeniable patriotism of the athletes have always provided the Olympics with great drama. Let's face it, the Olympics make it difficult to separate patriotism and sports. Each athlete competes for themselves and their country. They wrap themselves in the flag and we embrace them for representing our nation. Everyone, from Michael Jordan to the medal-winning snow-boarders, speaks of what it means to compete for their country. Every nation and every other nation's athletes exhibit the same patriotism.
Yet, every four years we get an Olympic official gravely intoning how "sports transcend politics" and how "the Games are a universal not a national event."
Tell that to the Russians, South Koreans and Canadians who have all used politics, nationalism and legal threats to protest perceived unfair treatment of their athletes. The Russian Duma, the lower house of Parliament, voted 359-3 to boycott the closing ceremonies. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that American athletes were given "a clear advantage" by partisan judges and officials. South Korea was so incensed by the disqualification of one of its short-track speed skaters that they also threatened to pull out of the closing ceremonies. Even the usually mild-mannered Canadians screamed that their skaters were cheated out of gold by "Cold War-era judging."
Each nation, probably with wide public approval, sent diplomats to Salt Lake to help mediate the situation. Leonid Tyagachev, President of the Russian Olympic Committee, would not be so easily placated. At a recent press conference, he pounded on the table and roared, "not only has Russia been humiliated, but China, the Ukraine and the Koreans have also been humiliated."
We are the world this is not. Welcome to the Olympics, where the world's nations come together, look around and realize that they just can't get along.
The Olympic crises illustrate how much the world has changed in the last decade. During the Cold War, judging was so corrupt and athlete doping so rampant that Enron executives are ethical giants in comparison. But every nation knew the score and when something happened they moved on to the next event or to the next time the Olympics were held in a "friendly" country.
I must admit to missing the Cold War-era Olympics. The current controversies are low drama compared to the boycotts, kidnappings, judging deals, steroid scandals and intense nationalism of sport during those years. The two superpowers faced off and carried their global competition to the playing fields. It didn't matter if Australia occasionally won a short-track speed skating medal or Bulgaria a hepthalon. What mattered was beating the former Soviet Union. I still get goose-bumps thinking about the American hockey team's "Miracle on Ice."
The post-Cold War Olympics just don't measure up somehow. I think this is because the United States is now the world's only superpower. Our nation dominates every field of human activity from film to food, fashion to finance. Our cultural, economic, diplomatic and military power is unmatched. It should come as no surprise that this power is being transferred to international sports. Nor should it be a surprise that other countries carp and complain about this dominance. Any cursory study of history will show that powerful nations attract competitors. What is true of geo-politics is true of sport.
In recent years, the Russians, Chinese, North Koreans and French have all complained about American global power. Each nation has moaned how the global order is tilted in favor of U.S. interests and each has threatened to boycott international agreements and coalitions.
These are serious challenges to international peace and security, but the Olympics provide a cheap way to ease tensions. Let the Russians have a few gold medals, placate the Korean skaters, give the Chinese a break and be kind to stylish and fragile French judges. And we should also throw in a few million of those cute berets that are such a fashion hit.
The United States should save its power and prestige for the big stuff — like fighing terrorism, missile defense, nuclear non-proliferation, human rights abuses and Middle East peace. Sports competition is a great nationalist release, but I'd trade figure-skating gold any day for Russian help containing Iraq's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. And I'd take it easy on the Chinese women's hockey team for the release of religious and political dissidents.
Next time, I hope the nations of the "Axis of Evil" field teams. I would cheer heartily for the women's hockey team's thrashing of Iraq, boo the French judge's scores for the al-Qaeda ice dancer and even watch our curling team thump the North Koreans. Now that would be an Olympics to remember.
Scott Flipse is Associate Director of Notre Dame's Washington Semester and Pew Civitas Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Contact him at Flipse.1@nd.edu. His column appears every other Tuesday.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Viewpoint Stories for Tuesday, February 26, 2002
