WOODY: IOC won’t apply power against powerful

By Paul Woody Media General News Service
Published: August 2, 2008

When the International Olympic Committee denied seven Iraqi athletes the opportunity to compete in the 2008 Olympics, the reason given was that politics have no place in the Olympics.
Good point.
When will the IOC follow that rule itself?
When China restricted the Internet access in the media center for the Beijing Games, Olympic President Jacque Rogue said, “We are not running the Internet in China.”
Good point.
But if the IOC can ban countries from competing in the Olympics, shouldn’t it have the ability to control the Internet in its media center at its Olympic Games?
And no one is asking the IOC to run the Internet in China. All that is being asked is that the IOC control the Internet at its press center.
“We would like to see open access,” said Giselle Davies, spokeswoman for the IOC.
That should not be so hard. The IOC should be able to say to the government of China, “We can’t trust you. We’re taking over the Internet. We run the Olympics.”
The IOC is very good at punishing athletes and cracking down on helpless countries. It’s not so good at standing up to a government that controls huge amounts of wealth and rules 20 percent of the world’s population.
The IOC can slap around Iraq, in shambles after six years of war. In Iraq, the IOC can keep “politics” out of the Olympics.
The IOC had no such concerns when Uday Hussein was running the Iraqi Olympic program and torturing and killing athletes who failed to meet his expectations.
The IOC has no such concerns with North Korea, Cuba, Sudan or Zimbabwe, countries where politics just might enter into the Olympic movement.
After Iraq capitulated on the composition of its Olympic committee, the IOC graciously permitted two Iraqi track and field athletes to enter the 2008 games. The five others were out of luck because the deal was struck after the deadline for entry into their events.
All they have to do is wait until 2012 — if they can qualify then, and if they live that long.
But it’s good that “politics” have been kept out of the Olympic movement in Iraq.
The idea that the IOC can keep politics out of the Olympics is laughable. Few sports events are as political as the Olympics. Political undertones are a constant at the Olympics. Always have been, always will be.
If the IOC wants to keep politics out of sport, it needs to look beyond Iraq.
According to a story in The Wall Street Journal, Germany has reconstituted its cold-war era sports schools for the development of Olympic athletes.
The German government has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into facilities so that the elite few can enhance their chance of winning Olympic medals.
Ah, that worked so well for everyone before.
This is as pure a political move as there ever has been in the Olympic movement. Germany has embarked on this plan because other countries have put hundreds of millions of dollars into their Olympic movements. The result was that Germany saw its athletes falling further behind in the medal count at each Olympics.
Memo to the IOC: That is a political motivation. Governments see Olympic medals as a way of raising their international profile and bringing glory to their countries.
Will the IOC sanction Germany or Japan or Australia for mixing politics and the Olympics?
Of course not. Those countries have power. They would find a way to make life difficult for the IOC.
What the IOC does best is bully those too weak to fight back.
It is a sign of the great strength of the Olympic athletes that they survive and thrive, not because of the IOC but in spite of it.
Paul Woody is a staff writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.