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It has been established earlier that sport does not exist free of the socio-cultural reality of the society of which it is a part. Rather than an escape from the real world, sport reinforces or responds to its cultural context. Nor is sport, intrinsically, a tool of hegemonic control or a means of distracting people from political causes. The Victorians wisely saw the ability to use sport to promote social values but no sport by its very existence promotes any specific political or ideological position. Therefore, in the twentieth century sport was yet again redefined to reflect the broader developments of the century. Two major developments were the continuing evolution from nationalism to internationalism, and in Western culture the perfection of consumer culture. These developments highlight sport as an ever-changing aspect of popular culture.
At the London Olympics of 1908 Irish American athletes refused to recognize the king at the opening ceremonies because of the Irish-English political disputes. Later, an Italian runner collapsed near the end of the marathon. British officials aided the runner across the finish line ahead of an American runner. It was clear that sport as an ideal, an aesthetic, was impossible to achieve in the modern world. Racism, politics, nationalism and the exclusion of professionals and labourers from competition all indicated that the function of sport was defined by socio-political realities. When Hitler's Nazi Party came to power with its dream of a Master race, again, sport would figure prominently in their dream of social engineering. By offering and promoting sport the Nazis found it easier to attract young people, and the notion of the healthy body as a reflection of national and racial superiority could be manipulated to reinforce the Nazi racial policies. Non Aryans were described as "degenerate", alluding to not simply an aesthetic inferiority, but a biological inferiority. Prior to achieving political power the Nazi's offered sporting opportunities to their young members and when they achieved power, excluded Jews from using public sporting facilities such as swimming pools, thus diminishing their chances to train and earn positions in international competitions. However the most crucial sporting story from the Nazi era was the 1936 Berlin Olympics where Hitler vowed to show the world the tangible consequence of his fascist politics, via sporting competitions with the world.
The Nazi's were certainly not the first to politicize the Olympics but raised the practice to new heights. The games presented an opportunity to raise the fascist profile on the world stage. The success of German athletes "confirmed" the "biological superiority" of Aryans. Following World War II much of the world sub-divided along ideological lines and old allies became new enemies while old enemies became essential allies. While the Cold War was played out in many areas such as economics, geography and diplomacy, it found an effective stage at the Olympics where the notion of gentlemanly amateurism had given way to unapologetic nationalism. Worldwide interest in sport made the games the ideal venue for nations and ideologies to play out their propaganda in front of the world. Arthur Daley of the New York Time wrote that the US must insure that America's best athletes compete on the world stage to teach the Russians a lesson. At the 1952 Helsinki Olympics Communism and capitalism went head to head, with the USSR winning the total points and the US winning the medal count 76-71. The USSR's performance reflected the Soviet's commitment to success by building a sophisticated internal program and placing its top athletes in the military, where they could train as amateurs for world competitions. In contrast most US athletes were "students" at universities where they too could train and compete without the demands of earning a living. Both nations found ways to retain their athletes' amateur status and at the same time have their sporting vanguard in peak condition. In 1956 on the eve of the Melbourne Olympics the Suez Crisis erupted, followed by the Israeli attack on Egypt. The Egyptians called for the Olympic Committee to expel the aggressor nations and when this failed to materialize, Arab nations boycotted the games. In response to the USSR's invasion of Hungary, fights broke out in the water polo match between the two countries. This began a long series of Olympic boycotts related to political realities of the moment. In 1962 the USSR began a movement to have South Africa banned from the Olympics because of their racial policies and was successful in having them banned from the Tokyo Olympics in 64. This ban was lifted in 1968 to allow the South Africans to compete in Mexico City, but when the African nations threaten to boycott en masse, the decision was again reversed. Prior to the Montreal Olympics Canada officially recognized the People's Republic of China and would not allow Taiwan to compete as "China" at games. The US threatened to withdraw completely if Canada did not change its mind. The threat was important because of the huge revenues that would be lost. Taiwan chose to withdraw on its own, thus avoiding a Canada/US show down and the games went ahead, but to the delight of the USSR tension and animosity were obvious. African nations called on the IOC to ban New Zealand from the Montreal games because its rugby team had played against South Africa. When their eleventh hour demand was rejected many African nations withdrew.
In 1980, at the Lake Placid (Winter) Olympics, the American ice hockey team achieved "a miracle on ice" when they defeated the powerful Finnish team for the gold medal, ahead of Russia, Sweden and Canada. This victory was elevated to mythological proportions in the tradition of Damon Runyon stories, and confirmed the ideals of national commitment, meritocracy and overcoming insurmountable odds against a greater foe, common throughout America's self perception (see Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics) The Olympics and other major international sporting spectacles have revealed that in the current century sport cannot exist beyond the tawdry reality of politics and ideologies but are rather a major factor in a nation self image and world perception. Sporting successes and failures are a measure of a nation's potential beyond the playing fields and arenas. How a country plays the game has become a measure of the nation's collective personality. While the Olympics pay lip service to an unattainable sporting ideal the reality is that over the century the games have been plagued with scandal after scandal, including bribes and kickbacks, cheating, partisanship and drug abuse. At least one possible explanation for the scandals and "poor-sportsmanship" might be that the Olympics were, and remain, predicated on a fantasy that ignored the reality of the place of sport in the real world. |
In 1896 Baron Pierre de Coubertin's dream of
resurrecting the ancient Greek Olympics was realized. The
French aristocrat's objective was to promote sport as
uncorrupted by the real world. In itself he saw sport as
pure; pursued for the love of competition unsullied by
professionalism, nationalism and winning at all cost.
Ironically these were not the values of the ancient Greeks,
but the mythological gentlemanly values of the nineteenth
century European middle classes. From their inception, the
Olympics were never able to offer athletes uncorrupted
competition. Nationalism and Social Darwinism were
underlying themes of the Olympics leading up to WWI. At the
St Louis Olympics of 1904 American "cheating" was alleged by
European athletes when a US judge declared an American
swimmer the winner over the obvious Hungarian victor in the
500 meters. It was also revealed that the American winner of
the marathon had driven 11 miles of the race in a car. As
part of the World Expo held in conjunction with the games
there were 'freak shows", and racially segregated non-white
games held as part of "Anthropology Days" with non-whites
competing in pole climbing, mud wrestling and spear
throwing. A major concern was that a Canadian athlete, after
winning his event in the "real" games also competed in the
non-white spectacle since he was part native.
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The major goal of
the 36 Berlin (Nazi) Olympics was to exceed those held in
Los Angeles four years earlier and to show the world the
superiority of the fascist system. Nazi racial policies were
well known in the sporting world, but even though there were
international calls to boycott the games, American Olympic
Committee president Avery Brundage and other high ranking
officials committed the Americans to attending despite the
politics. Certainly this indicates that Brundage and others
believed that sports and politics were different things,
rather than that they supported fascism. Only Spain
supported a boycott. The Nazi's toned down their
anti-Semitic rethoric during the games. While the Germans
won the majority of medals, it was American Jesse Owens who
emerged as the games' hero.
Owens won gold in
the broad jump, the 100 and 200 meter sprints, as part of
the 400 meter relay, setting or tying records in all his
events. The media made much of the fact that Owens was
snubbed by Hitler who did not congratulate him. Hitler, who
had congratulated German athletes, was told to congratulate
all or none of the winners and chose to do the latter. As
historian William Baker observes it was not a snub to Owens.
As Owens later noted, he was not invited to the White House
to be congratulated by the president either.
The largest
boycott of the Olympics occurred in 1980 at the Moscow games
after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. In an attempt to
bring the world community together against Communist
aggression President Jimmy Carter announced that unless the
Soviets withdrew their troops, US athletes would not appear
in Moscow. The US then put pressure on their allies to join
the boycott. Those most under US influence chose to support
Carter, as did the British, but the British Olympic
committee defied their Prime Minister and allowed the
specific national sporting bodies to choose for themselves.
Canada agreed to support the boycott as did 61 other
nations. The implication was that the US put political and
economic pressure on countries to stay away, taking sport
well into the realm of world diplomacy. Four years later,
the USSR trumped the US by announcing they would boycott the
Los Angeles Olympics because the Americans could not ensure
the safety of Russian athletes in the crime-ridden streets
of the city. The boycott was a sham but it did rob the
Americans of the opportunity to promote the superiority of
their political system and tainted the accomplishments of
Western athletes.
To argue that
sport and politics are somehow separate entities based on
the post war Olympics is becoming increasingly difficult.
Perhaps the greatest examples of the politicization of sport
in the twentieth century have been played out on the ice in
major international hockey games. In 1972, Canadian
professionals from the NHL played Soviet "amateurs" in the
first of these types of sporting spectacles. Pre-tournament
hype suggested that the Canadians had superior skills but
more importantly greater imagination, individual desire for
success and that paid capitalist professionals were simply
better athletes that their Russian amateur counterparts. It
was rumored that the Russian goalie could not "stop a beach
ball in a bowling alley". The series became a Cold War
battle between the benefits of capitalism and the
restrictions of Communism. When the Canadians were forced to
pull out a last minute victory in the last game to secure
the series, Canada and all capitalist countries had
confirmation of their political superiority. Paul
Henderson's goal did much more than win a series, it rescued
the cultural and ideological chauvinism of the nation. The
moment, has a place in the Canadian psyche that far exceeds
its mere sporting accomplishment. The nation's confidence in
its political ideology has never been more assuredly
justified than in hockey in 1972.
