My Olympic Dream Is Over

I was the fastest runner in my neighborhood, and competed in track through High School, dreaming – until faster kids dissuaded me – that I could compete in the Olympics. Through each quadrennial, I was glued to the TV. My biggest emotional heartbreak was when my grade school sweetheart’s mother remarried (her husband having been killed in the Korean War) a senior editor at Sports Illustrated, and didn’t invite me along to the 1960 Games in Rome.

So, to say I have a deep attachment to the Olympics is an understatement.

And, so, for me to say now that my dream is over of the Olympics as an international test of the best does not come easily, but is practical.

As an adult, I learned about the gross political abuses of the Olympic spirit in 1936 (see here for an annotated pictorial history of the 1936 Berlin Games); I learned of the doping of atheletes; I learned of the huge profits garnered by commercial sponsors while the sites usually drained their citizens purse.

Most important, I learned that the Olympic Games do not so much represent an opportunity for individual athletes to be the best in the world, as each sport has other competitions that accomplish that. The Olympic Games are, primarily by Western businesses, commercially funded tourism and prestige promoters for the host country.

The Washington Post’s sports columnist Sally Jenkins presents a strong case that the “IOC Needs to Step In Or Perhaps Move On.”

At this point, the Beijing Games are shaping up as a disaster. The violent police action in Tibet and other events of the past two weeks make one wonder if the Chinese government is fundamentally unfit to host an Olympics. Officials there have violated the basic spirit of the event and reneged on every promise they made to the International Olympic Committee about their willingness to accommodate the world….

The centerpiece of China's bid seven years ago was a promise to make progress on human rights and to open the country to world media coverage. Chinese officials practically begged for the Games and made all kinds of assurances. But instead, the direct opposite has happened -- the Games actually have caused a significant pre-Games crackdown, abuses that range from sweeping arrests of dissidents to the strong-arming in Tibet, where as many as 130 may have died, according to the exiled Tibetan government.

The Olympics aren't supposed to be political. But they aren't supposed to be a force of evil, either.

There’s much, much more from Jenkins, ending with,

It's time for the IOC to make the Chinese government live up to its word, and to the Olympic charter and spirit. Otherwise, take the Games away from Beijing.

Actually, everything Jenkins presents and argues call for going further, as the Olympic dream is over, and so should be the Games we’re involved in for the profits of a NBC or GE or host tourism, amateur excellence and freedom be darned in the process along with any care for the rights of participating countries populations. The Olympics is a political event, and thus far from the dream. The 2008 version of 1936 is too dreary a repetition to say its sponsors learned to be a force for good in the intervening 72 years.