Let the (Political) Games Begin

It is intriguing to wonder what Baron Pierre de Coubertin would make of today’s version of his 1896 creation, the modern Olympic Games. He believed the Games could unite nations and promote peace and friendship among peoples, bring communities together, stop war and promote healthy competition free from cheating and discrimination. Alas, on the opening day of the Paris Games, the country suffered arson attacks that the Prime Minister called “coordinated and prepared acts of sabotage.” The Games are riddled with politics, as nations use them to build international standing, while for groups ranging from protesters to terrorists, they are a stage the whole world is watching.

By Gregory F. Treverton

Note: The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of SMA, Inc.

Yet perhaps the good Baron would not be so surprised: “the most important thing…is not to win but to take part,” the rest of the quote is “the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.”[1] He also served as president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) until 1925, so he lived to see the ravages of World War I intrude big time on his beloved Olympics, causing the cancellation of the 1916 Games. So, today’s political turmoil would perhaps not shock him: indeed, one of the two major wars being fought now, in the trenches of Ukraine, would have eerily reminded him of World War I.

I doubt that he could have imagined the demise of another of  his ideals—like ancient Games, they were a strictly amateur affairs—somethings that is hard even for use to believe was case until 1986 when now all but one of the basketball players on Team USA makes more than thirty million dollars a year—and some a lot more!  Jim Thorpe, one of America’s most famous athletes, was stripped of his decathlon and pentathlon gold medals, won in 1912 in Stockholm, after it was uncovered that he had been paid (a pittance) for playing semi-professional baseball while he was in college. I hope de Coubertin would still look most fondly on those Olympic sports where there is little or no money to be made and competitors simply love the sport—a vanishing breed now when only boxing is restricted to amateurs and even rowers get paid by their countries to row full time.

Past Politics as Prelude

To be sure, the modern Olympics are hardly a stranger to politics. Probably the most celebrated case in point is the Berlin Games in 1936. Berlin had been awarded the Games before the Nazis came to power, but Adolf Hitler saw them as an enormous propaganda opportunity for his regime and his theory that Aryans were a superior race. By the time of the Games, protests over the persecution of Jews already had sparked calls for the United States and individual American athletes to boycott the games. In the end, the Games went on, but Hitler’s dreams came to naught when Jesse Owens, the Black American sprinter, stunned the world by winning four gold medals.

At Mexico City in 1968, two Black American sprinters raised their fist in what was interpreted at the time as a black power salute from the winners’ podium. Tragically, in 1972 at Munich Palestinian terrorists infiltrated the Olympic Village, killed two Israeli athletes and took nine others hostage, who were later killed after a failed rescue attempt by German police. Politics intruded again in a less bloody fashion in 1980 when the United States boycotted the Games in Moscow as part of its response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the year before. In return, Russia boycotted the 1984 games because they were held in Los Angeles.

The political tugs on the IOC are plainly visible. On one hand, the good Baron’s emphasis on global friendship argues for inclusion, but on the other he emphasized sportsmanship, which might sometimes argue for exclusion. The tugs are on display in the IOC’s handling of doping. The IOC provides half the funding for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), created in the wake of past scandals like an American athlete’s drug-tainted ouster from the 1988 Seoul Olympics and the 1998 Tour de France doping scandal.

Yet the IOC is pulled at by inclusion. On the eve of these Paris Game, it awarded the 2034 Winter Games to Salt Lake City but did so demanding that U.S. Olympic leaders pressure the government to rescind an anti-conspiracy law—one aimed at doping—that passed unanimously in 2020, under which the FBI was investigating allegations of Chinese doping that WADA had not pursued. In 2016 WADA and the IOC clashed over whether to exclude Russia from the Rio de Janeiro games over yet another doping scandal. In the end, the IOC prevailed, and Russia was permitted in the Games.

In 2023, the IOC did ban Russia from participating in Paris because of the war in Ukraine. Instead, it offered a complicated formula under which Russian athletes could participate as Individual Neutral Athletes (AIN in its French acronym) if they had not demonstrated support for the war or had contact with any military or national security agencies. Fifteen Russian have been accorded that status, but dozens more will participate, having acquired new nationalities to get around the sanctions imposed on Russian sports.

A Tempting Target

After the Olympic opening ceremony day arson that affected some 800,000 train travelers, French authorities said they had already thwarted four attempted attacks targeting the games, and prevented a thousand people from attending the games. Security for the Games is an enormous undertaking, with 45,000 police officers, 10,000 soldiers, and 2,000 private security guards, plus 1,000 police reinforcements from 40 countries.

Sadly, we know from the July 13 attempt to assassinate former President Donald Trump that big events in large, open settings are hard to police. And those events are what the Olympics offer in spades. Add in the presence of large crowds and intense media attention, and you have all the ingredients for disruptions ranging from political protests to terrorist attacks.

We also know that there is no shortage of causes out there, with the war in Gaza heading the lists. Indeed, FBI director Christopher A. Wray said in an interview in April that “I’m hard pressed to come up with a time when I’ve seen so many different threats, all elevated, all at the same time.” The threats were rising before Hamas’ October attack, but since then “it’s gone to a whole other level.”[2] The most pressing terrorist threat is probably ISIS-K, the group responsible for the terrorist rampage in Moscow last March. But we know, most recently from the attack on Trump, that lone wolves with obscure causes, or apparently none at all, can do major mayhem—or worse. The uncertainty is increased because the politics of the host, France, are in turmoil, after two elections that produced a right-wing surge followed by a center-left reaction, leaving the shape of the future government in some doubt.

Much as I might hope, the world will not return to my vision of the Olympics, which would be amateurs only, no countries, flags, or silly costumes. There might be regional qualifying events but only for convenience. If it turned out that most of the world’s fastest sprinters were Jamaican, so be it. I would also be tempted to limit the events to ones without judges, only those where the winner would run the fastest, jump the highest, throw the javelin the further, and so on. The goal would be to avoid judges and thus arguments about whether their judgments showed favoritism. Here, though, I balk at my own vision, for the Olympic sport I probably like best is gymnastics, which depends entirely on judges.

Yet if my vision is now a fantasy—and perhaps a more-than-slightly crochety one at that—we can at least remember that the Olympics are about the athletes, not countries or flags. While the camaraderie might be better if the athletes were not separated into nations, there still are friendships to be made, much as de Coubertin hoped. We cannot avoid the toting up of which country wins the most medals, but we can try to de-emphasize it. For American Olympians, we can hope they fight well but display the sportsmanship de Coubertin sought.

Paris will also be a chance to see if the sad pattern of previous Games can be avoided. That pattern is great hopes for tourism revenue when a city is awarded the Games dashed by mushrooming costs for preparations and citizens irritated with the disruption during the Games, which then leave behind expensive white elephant stadiums.

With the political turmoil surrounding the Paris Games, we can only keep our fingers crossed that the arson attacks are the worse outbreaks of violence. If the French pull it off, we will all sigh with relief, and will not only owe a debt of gratitude to the French hosts, but surely we will be able to learn something from them.

Gregory F. Treverton stepped down as Chair of the US National Intelligence Council in 2017. He is now Professor of the Practice at Dornsife College, University of Southern California, Chair of the Global TechnoPolitics Forum, and an SMA Executive Advisor.

[1] As quoted in Pierre de Coubertin, at https://www.azquotes.com.

[2] As quoted in David Ignatius, “The FBI Director’s Concerns over Terrorism Are at ‘A Whole Other Level,’” Washington Post, April 30, 2024.