Transforming of Olympic Games - Assignment Example

Transforming of Olympic Games The concept of Olympic Games was taken by Baron Coubertin from the British history of gaming festivals, ly the Wenlock Olympian Society Annual Games. All sports historians acknowledge the impact of the Wenlock Games on the modern Olympic movement. The word ‘Olympian Class’ was first used in the Wenlock Games to show the overall betterment of the people of the Town and its neighbourhood. Thus, from its inception, the tradition of old Greece was imbibed by the organisers (Coubertin, 1890). Budgetary transformation has been one of the leading factors. The International Olympics Committee’s (IOC) budget during the early half period of the 20th century was quite meagre. The then president of IOC, Avery Brundage was quite aggressive in his approach not to allow commercial stakes to play a role in Olympic Games. A shift in approach was seen in 1980 when Juan Antonio Samaranch was president of the IOC, as he wanted to bring about a change for making the IOC monetarily strong. The Olympic Program (TOP) was initiated by Samaranch in 1985. Still TOP membership fee is quite high, to the tune of US$50 million for a period of 4 years (Buchanon & Mallon, 2006). Coubertin was against making IOC a commercial organisation, as he defined Olympism “not a system but a state of mind...created by the cultivation of both effort and eurhythmy...the basis of absolute virility,” as cited by (Buchanon & Mallon, 2006, Introduction ci.). Politics has interfered in Olympics different ways. Take for example the holding of 1936 Olympics at Berlin, facing large scale boycott to raise voice against Nazism although the movement could not succeed. Racism was widely prevalent in American society at that time, as the African American Jesse Owens had to live in a racist environment even after winning four gold medals in track. The 1968 Olympics faced demonstrations from black athletes, inspired by the civil rights and black power movements and also motivated from the excellent performance by charismatic boxer Muhammad Ali. It was sheer politics when in 1980 President Jimmy Carter boycotted the Olympic Games in Moscow to show dissent against Soviet entry into Afghanistan. The 1984 Los Angeles games were boycotted by the Soviet Union but were a commercial success by earning $250 million (Dictionary of American History, 2003). In a way the modem Olympics have been political from their start, as the very aim was to bring people and nations together, distancing them from disputes - definitely politics on a huge level. Politics has been behind the ignited national disputes (Daniels, 2008). The most notorious of politicians was Adolph Hitler who used Olympics for ulterior motives. Countries on the blocs of the Cold War boycotted the Olympic Games in 1956, 1976, 1980, and 1984. Later in 1972 and 1976, African teams used the platform of Olympic Games, boycotting to protest against apartheid rule in South Africa and Rhodesia. The Munich Olympics of 1972 and the Atlanta Olympics of 1996 could not be played due to terrorism during World War I and World War II. When the Cold War was at its peak during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, political stakeholders attempted to use athletic victories to proclaim for their political systems (Guttmann, 2002). Transformation of the Olympic Games also brought into limelight the use of drugs by the sports’ participants to enhance their performance. Charges of doping and drug use have become relatively common with the time, tarnishing directly the Olympics reputation, as the practice of doping and drug use is not healthy. Participants corrupt the body to gain victory (Jennings, 2000). The issue of drug use, perhaps, cannot be totally resolved but the cases of medals taken away from athletes are on the reducing, as only one athlete was found positive for drug use in Turin Olympics held in 2006 (Guttmann, 1994). As stated above, the huge budget involved in the Olympic Games has been a leading area of change in the Olympics, promoting commercialisation by making it an industry, thus, refuting the IOC claims for ethical consideration for the global sports. Commercialisation of the Olympics has been the most visible and basic change, changing it from an amateur peoples’ sport to commercially focussed and globally managed mega event. The Games have become corporatized, because of the stated reason of realisation of ‘legacies’ emerging from the holding of the mega events. Justification of commercialization is a complicated matter in view of the sponsoring corporations, inspiring participants to become physically fit by participating although their own products, such as Coca Cola and McDonald, add to the obesity levels of the young generations. Take the case of the Olympic Park, breaking all sales records by selling goods without any tax within the Park area, as per the IOC conditions conferred on ‘core sponsors’ providing them the opportunity to avail tax-saving. Olympics has actually turned into “fat cat” for sponsors of the Games like property developers and for the IOC also, earning in million dollars by selling viewership rights to television companies and sponsors worldwide (Horne, 2010, p. 28). The selection of host country is made through bidding, which involves unedifying manipulations to impress upon voting attitude. The selection of the host country by the IOC offers various opportunities to bestow lavish welcome but at the same time chances of corrupt and unethical practices increase very much. The ballot process of voting leaves ample scope for manipulations of voting. For example, the table1 below shows how the chances of hosting the Olympic Games went on decreasing for Manchester, Berlin and Istanbul and increasing for Beijing and Sydney by the time the Round 4 voting took place. Table I: Sydney 2000 Olympics Bidding Rounds There remains the possibility of exploiting the platform of Olympic Games for impressing upon the host country to change its human rights policies and internal political processes (Rowe, 2012). After effects of bidding process can be as grave as post-colonial racism in Sydney’s 2000 Olympic bid and Salt Lake City’s involvement in a bribery scandal over the bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics. Mega events as the Olympic Games are the worrisome issues of resultant suffering and misery to the hosting cities, which is fraught with risks, such as devaluation, turning these mega events into a negative-sum game, in which the victor becomes the loser at the end (Gotham, 2011). Certainly, this is not a good sign for the future of the Olympic Games. Organisers need to look into this issue so that commercialisation does not harm the ethical values cherished by Coubertin. References Buchanon, I., & Mallon, B., 2006. Historical dictionary of the Olympic movement. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-5574-8. Coubertin, P.D., 1890. Les jeux Olympiques à much Wenlock. La Revue Athlétique, 1, pp. 705–13. Database: Proquest Daniels, B. C., 2008. Early modern Olympians: Puritan sportsmen in seventeenth-century England and America. Canadian Journal of History, 43(2), 253-263. Available from: http://search.proquest.com/docview/194352552?accountid=458 Dictionary of American History. 2003. Sports. Available from http://www.encyclopedia.com Gotham, K.F., 2011. Resisting urban spectacle: the 1984 Louisiana World Exposition and the contradictions of mega events. Urban Studies, 48 (197). doi: 10.1177/0042098009360230. Grix, J., 2013. Sport politics and the Olympics. Political Studies Review, 11, PP. 15–25. doi: 10.1111/1478-9302.12001 Guttmann, A., 1992. The Olympics: A History of the Modern Games. Urbana, Ill., University of Illinois Press, 2002. Available from: http://books.google.de/books/about/The_Olympics.html?hl=de&id=TbLmQQG-2bQC Guttmann, A., 1994. Games and empires: modern sports and cultural imperialism. New York, Columbia University Press, pp. 120-38. Horne, J., 2010. The politics of hosting the Olympic Games. In A. Bairner and G. Molnar, eds, The Politics of the Olympics: A Survey. London: Routledge, pp. 27–40. Jennings, A., 2000. The great Olympic scandal: When the world wanted its games back. London and New York, pp. 3-4. Rowe, D., 2012. The bid, the lead-up, the event and the legacy: global cultural politics and hosting the Olympics. British Journal of Sociology, 63 (2), pp. 285-305, SocINDEX with Full Text, EBSCOhost. Read More