A Death Knell for the Olympics?

May 8, 1984:

“The National Olympic Committee of the U.S.S.R. is compelled to declare that participation of Soviet sportsmen in the Games of the XXIII Olympiad in Los Angeles is impossible.”

THUS the bombshell fell on the world of Olympic sports. The Soviets had withdrawn from the Los Angeles Olympic Games. Within a few days other communist nations had imitated their example.

What provoked the sudden withdrawal of the U.S.S.R. from the Olympic Games? According to the official Russian statement put out by the Soviet news agency Tass, the chief motive is SECURITY. They alleged, “Political demonstrations hostile to the U.S.S.R. are being prepared, undisguised threats are made against the U.S.S.R. National Olympic Committee, Soviet sportsmen and officials.” They added that the attitude of the U.S. authorities had been a “gross flouting of the ideals and traditions of the Olympic movement.”

But was security really the only motive behind the Russian action? In the labyrinth of devious international politics, could there be other motives? Analyzing this move in the superpowers’ world “chess” game, the Western press offered other possible causes for the Soviet dropout. They can all be summed up in one word​—POLITICS.

The British weekly The Economist stated: “Ever since the Americans stayed away from the Moscow Olympics in 1980, a Soviet reprisal was a possibility.” Thus many observers see the Russian action as simply a tit-for-tat revenge move but with additional ramifications. 1984 is presidential election year in the United States. Thus U.S.News & World Report stated: “Once again a weary world watched in dismay as the Olympic Games . . . were held hostage to big-power politics. . . . the real impact of the boycott is political.” It then added, “The prime target in the pullout was Ronald Reagan.” Newsweek said that Moscow’s bombshell “was also a harsh signal of the Kremlin’s deepening antagonism toward Ronald Reagan.” A New York Times writer offered the view that “the Kremlin’s decision was inseparable from the deep hostility that has settled over Soviet-American relations in recent years.”

This is already the fifth consecutive time that the Olympic Games have become a victim, in one way or another, of politics. Since 1968 the Olympic Games have been tainted by political overtones. They have been used more and more as a vehicle to express political protest and resentment. Terrorists have converted the Olympic arena into a scenario for their bloodletting. The two superpowers have now demonstrated how the Olympic Games can become a pawn in their struggle for supremacy. And the logical question is, What effect will all of this have on the future of the Games?

Long-Term Effects

Will the Olympic Games survive this additional dent in their image? Some officials are still optimistic. William Simon, president of the United States Olympic Committee, is reported as saying, “The Olympic movement is strong. With all its warts, it is still a positive force for peace.” Others, however, have a more somber view. Said Alberto Salazar, holder of the world marathon record, “I’m just sad that this has happened and feel that it’s going to be a death blow for the Olympics.” Newsweek ventured the opinion that “it may foreshadow the final destruction of the modern Olympic movement itself.”

Certainly, serious questions are now raised about future sponsorship of the Games. What city or business consortium will want to accept the financial liability of organizing the Games if they are always to be sacrificed like a pawn in political squabbles? Will athletes still want to prepare so hard if their participation cannot be guaranteed because of international politics? These are just some of the doubts now being expressed. But there are other questions​—What about nationalism? The use of drugs? The participation of sham amateurs? In other words​—Are Olympic ideals on the wane? Or on the way out?

The Olympic Games​—Really “for the Glory of Sport”?

A RELIGIOUS festival held in Olympia, southern Greece, over 2,760 years ago was the forerunner of events in Los Angeles, California, that have likely captured your interest. The festival was in honor of the god Zeus, who was supposed to rule on Mount Olympus. Out of it came the Olympic Games, first celebrated in 776 B.C.E. The different city-states of ancient Greece sent their best athletes to compete there every four years.

The tradition continued until 393 C.E., when the ancient games were held for the last time. The following year they were banned by “Christian” Emperor Theodosius who prohibited all pagan (non-Christian) practices in the Roman Empire. So how is it that they exist today?

In the late 19th century, Pierre de Coubertin, a young French educator, became impressed by the use of sports in English public schools. He was convinced that a balanced education should include sports. Later, as one biographer writes, “he became obsessed with [the revival of] the Olympic Games.” Coubertin campaigned successfully, and in 1896 the Olympic Games were renewed, appropriately in Athens, Greece.

Among other things, Coubertin felt that the Games, held every four years, would serve to promote world peace. On that score he was wide of the mark. Since 1896 they have been interrupted twice due to two world wars and have often been bedeviled by politics. In 1974 Lord Killanin, then president of the International Olympic Committee, was constrained to say: “I appeal to every single sportsman and woman not to come to the Olympic Games if they wish to make use of sport for political purposes.”

In 1976 and 1980 his counsel backfired. Many nations boycotted the Games precisely to highlight their political grievances. Then at the end of the Moscow Olympic Games in 1980, Lord Killanin made another appeal: “I implore the sportsmen of the world to unite in peace before a holocaust descends . . . The Olympic Games must not be used for political purposes.” The very fact that these appeals were necessary indicates the danger that politics represents for the Olympic ideals. The withdrawal of many communist nations from the Los Angeles Olympic Games lends further weight to this point.

“For the Glory of Sport”?

Were the ancient Olympic Games necessarily based on sportsmanship and fair play? In his critique of the book The Olympic Games: The First Thousand Years, British writer-scholar Enoch Powell commented: “They were essentially un-sporting and unsportsmanlike. The game did not matter: all that mattered was victory. There were no ‘runners-up;’ but a victory, even if gained by a punished foul . . . was a victory as good as any other. They were dangerous and brutal.” In fact, the book states: “Competitors prayed for ‘either the wreath [of victory] or death.’”

The modern Olympics ostensibly have a purer motivation. As the Olympic Creed states: “The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as 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.” One athlete repeats the Olympic Oath, or Promise, in the name of all at the opening of the Games. It was devised by Coubertin and states: “In the name of all the competitors I promise that we shall take part in these Olympic Games, respecting and abiding by the rules which govern them, in the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of sport and the honour of our teams.”

Olympic Ideals in Danger

ONE of the rules of the Olympic Games is that only amateur athletes are allowed to compete. Until recently, any athlete who had gained financial benefit in excess of $50 (U.S.) from his or her athletic prowess was disqualified.

If that rule were applied to present-day athletes, the Games would have to be canceled! That outdated definition of an amateur is a hangover from the days when athletics were the pastime of the independent rich.

One recent report quotes Winter Olympics gold-medal winner Phil Mahre as saying that amateurism “just doesn’t exist at the top levels of sport.” As many athletes argue, who today can spend most of his time trying to achieve Olympic standards without some kind of financial support? Thus payments are made to “amateur” athletes through labyrinthine channels that avoid the supposed stigma of professionalism.

Sportsmanship or Nationalism?

Another Olympic ideal is that sportsmanship should prevail over nationalism. The Games are supposed to represent individuals competing against one another, not nations. Thus the Olympic Committee does not post any nation “league.” However, the press and television soon make up for that deficiency by publishing their own medals league by nations. As a result, the Games have become politicized. The press has turned them into a competition between the so-called capitalist and communist nations. Former Olympic athlete Harold Connolly said that for some the Games have become an “ideological battleground of sport.”

Writer James Michener, in his book Sports in America, speaks of “attempts throughout the United States to forge an alliance between sports and nationalism. Our political leaders have been goading sports into performing three improper functions . . . 1) Sports are being asked to serve as propaganda in support of specific political parties. 2) They are being used to buttress military goals. 3) They are being grossly misused to create a fuzzy, shallow patriotism.” He commented, “I am beginning to feel most uneasy when I watch sports being asked to serve as handmaiden to politics, militarism and flamboyant patriotism.”

Has Michener noticed this same tendency in the Olympics? “In the 1936 Olympics, Adolf Hitler became the first to exploit sports as an arm of nationalism,” he writes. He also quotes other examples from the 1968 and 1972 Games, adding, “Sober critics began to warn that if this unbridled nationalism were to continue, the Olympics would have to be halted.”

Are nationalism and patriotism in the Olympics just something played up by the media? Or are the participants actually caught up in it? The recent Winter Olympic Games in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, perhaps illustrate the point. The American ice skaters Charles (Peter) and Maureen (Kitty) Carruthers (brother and sister) won the silver medal. How did they react? The New York Times reported: “When the American flag went up,” said Peter, “it was a moment I will never forget.” “I just saw the flag go up,” said Kitty, “and it looked so good.”

When Scott Hamilton of the United States won a gold medal at the Sarajevo Winter Olympics, he “followed his performance by taking an American flag from a front-row spectator and waving it as he skated an extra victory lap around the rink.” (The New York Times, February 17, 1984) Yes, both athletes and spectators often turn the Olympics into a display of nationalism, with flags as the predominant symbol.

But as sports writer George Vecsey put it: “Originally, the Olympics were supposed to be free of nationalism, were supposed to be a chance for individuals to test their skills against the best athletes in the world.” All of that has changed. “The extra hook in the Olympic Games is nationalism,” he added.

Of course, not all athletes are affected by extreme patriotism. Phil Mahre, the U.S. slalom gold-medal winner, is reported as saying that he did not ski for his family or his country, “but for myself.” He added, “I was never in the sport to win one thing. I was here to compete. I was here to perform to my abilities. I was in the sport because I loved it.”

However, the pressure to win at any price has now mounted to such a degree that another insidious influence has worked its way into the Olympics​—drugs!

Olympic Glory Through Drugs?

The win-at-all-costs criterion has now brought the blight of drugs into the Olympics. For a long time it has been known that athletes in many sports use drugs such as muscle-building anabolic steroids, testosterone and other substances to enhance their ability. However, the scandal that really took the lid off the subject took place in August 1983, at the Pan American Games, when 13 athletes from the United States voluntarily withdrew from the competition. What triggered their dropping out? The sudden disqualification of 11 other athletes because of the use of banned drugs. The New York Times correspondent described these disqualifications as “the most sweeping of their kind in international sports history.”

The following day the U.S. Olympic Committee, responsible for American athletes who would participate in the 1984 Olympic Games, ordered that random tests be made on athletes who qualified to represent the United States. Any found to have used banned drugs would be excluded from the Los Angeles Olympics.

As a result of the spread of drugs in sports, an Olympic drug-testing center, costing $1,500,000 (U.S.), has been constructed on the University of California, Los Angeles, campus. Tests are performed to try to ensure that no Olympic athlete has the artificial advantage of any banned drug.

Olympics​—“Greatest Social Force in the World”?

In 1964 Avery Brundage, then president of the International Olympic Committee, stated: “The Olympic Movement today is perhaps the greatest social force in the world.” That was a disputable opinion then, and still is. As veteran sports journalist Leonard Koppett expressed it in his book Sports Illusion, Sports Reality: “Sports reflect social conditions; they don’t cause them. . . . What’s more, sports have the form they have because they were shaped by the society in which they developed. . . . Whenever society changes, sports change . . . sports don’t initiate change.”

Like everything else in our modern world, the Olympic Games are subject to the pressures of 20th-century developments​—whether it be in the field of big business, competition, violence or the use of drugs. As a result, many people associated with sports are asking disturbing questions about the future of the Olympic movement. Can Coubertin’s original Olympic ideals be sustained? Can the Olympics really remain amateur in the true sense of the word? Will the pressure of big business on so many athletes put an end to the “shamateur” era? Can the rising tide of politics and nationalism be kept at bay? Will fair play and sportsmanship be undermined by the win-at-all-costs philosophy? Will the Olympic motto of Citius, Altius, Fortius (Swifter, Higher, Stronger) be achieved by sheer strength and ability​—or by drugs? The next few years should provide some answers.

For Christians there are also other questions: Is religious sentiment involved in the Olympics? Could there be a clash with Christian principles? How should Christians view participation in sports? Should sports be the principal interest of one’s life? We invite you to follow the discussion in the final article of this series.

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“All That Glitters Is Not Gold”

“Olympic athletes may strive for years to win the coveted prizes, but the value of the gold, silver and bronze medals that finally hang around their necks is more symbolic than real,” stated The New York Times of February 17, 1984. Contrary to popular belief, the gold medal is not solid gold. That fact was discovered rather ruefully by Charlie Jewtraw, the very first gold-medal winner of the first Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France, in 1924. He is the lone survivor of the Chamonix gold medalists and recently stated: “It really bothered me when I found out about the medal not being solid gold. It wasn’t the value. It was the principle of the thing that got me.”

The “gold” medals awarded at the Winter Olympics this year in Sarajevo were actually 4.3 ounces of silver covered by 0.21 ounce of pure gold. Market value? About $120 (U.S.) each. In pure gold the medal would have been worth more than ten times as much.

[Picture on page 8, 9]

Will Olympic ideals lose out to big business, drugs, nationalism and violence?

The Olympics, Sports and Religion​—Is There a Conflict?

“THE last of the ancient Olympic Games was held in A.D. 393. In the following year the edict of the emperor Theodosius prohibited the holding of the Games.” (History of the Olympic Games, by Xenophon L. Messinesi) Why did the “Christian” emperor ban the Games? He wanted to purge all pagan activities from the empire. But why were the Olympic Games considered pagan?

Writer Messinesi adds: “We are told that, during the sacrifices to [the Greek god] Zeus . . . a priest stood at the end of the stadium holding a torch. The athletes among the worshippers . . . raced to the end of the stadium toward the priest . . . [the victor] had the privilege of lighting the fire at the altar for the sacrifices. The flame at the altar burned symbolically during the whole period of the Games . . . It is this part of the ceremony which has been resurrected for the contemporary Games.”

The pagan origin of the Games is perpetuated to this day in several ways. The Olympic torch is lit by the sun’s concentrated rays in a ceremony at the Sacred Grove in Olympia, Greece. A head priestess and priestesses participate in the act. The sacred flame is then carried from Olympia to the current Olympic Games city. Millions follow by TV and radio the journey of the torch. The climax is at the final stage when it is brought into the Olympic stadium to light the flame that will burn throughout the Games.

Historian Messinesi explains: “Nothing of all the ceremonies seems to create such an impression as the Flame which comes from Olympia . . . It links the Games about to be held with the religious expression sanctified over the centuries.” (Italics ours.) This opinion is confirmed by the words of the modern founder of the Olympic movement, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who in the year before he died stated: “I therefore think that I was right in trying from the outset of the Olympic revival to rekindle a religious awareness.”​—Italics ours.

Even as observed in the Los Angeles Olympic Games, there is a quasi-religious atmosphere to the ceremonies​—the host country’s national anthem is played, the Olympic flag is raised and the Olympic hymn is intoned. In view of all of this, how should a Christian view the Olympic Games? Moreover, what ideals should be his guide? Is ‘winning the only thing’? Or can simple participation be its own reward?

Sports in the Bible

Anyone reading the writings of the Christian apostles Peter and Paul has to recognize their exposure to the sports of their day. For example, Paul counseled the Corinthians, who were well aware of the athletic contests held at the Isthmian Games: “Do you not know that the runners in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may attain it. . . . Now they, of course, do it that they may get a corruptible crown [fading crown of leaves, Phillips], but we an incorruptible one [an eternal crown that will never fade].”​—1 Corinthians 9:24, 25.

Was Paul in effect saying that ‘winning is the only thing’ in sports? Not at all. He was making the point that there is only one first prize in a secular race​—but in the Christian race everyone can attain a first prize. So run with your mind fixed on winning the prize!

The victor’s crown is also alluded to by Peter. Both apostles knew that the different games awarded crowns​—of wild olive leaves in the Olympian Games, laurel leaves in the Pythian Games and a crown made of the pine for the Isthmian Games. These all faded and perished with time. Thus Peter recommended “the unfadable crown of glory” to Christian elders.​—1 Peter 5:4.

Therefore the point is well made​—glory achieved in sports is ephemeral, transient. That is why Paul could say: “For bodily training is beneficial for a little; but godly devotion is beneficial for all things, as it holds promise of the life now and that which is to come.” (1 Timothy 4:8) He clearly indicates that some physical training and exercise is beneficial or has a limited value. But it should not displace or replace a Christian’s dedication to God through Christ. God’s Kingdom, not sports, should occupy the first place in every Christian’s life. (Matthew 6:33) Of what good would it be to have an athletic body if the mind became degenerate or debased? Or what if he became an apostate by participating in pagan religious sports events? (2 Corinthians 6:14-17) And therein lies the danger today. Many things in modern sports philosophy compromise Christian principles and ideals, as do those who practice such philosophy. How so?