Suggestions to the bigwigs at the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have a way of not going down very well.
In the prelude to the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, as part of the tussle to avoid a boycott of the Games due to the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, the US president Jimmy Carter proffered the idea of locating the games in Athens – neutral territory and historically significant as the ancient home of the Olympic Games.
Piqued, the IOC rejected the proposal. The US led a 66-nation snub of the event.
A plethora of reasons fired Carter’s actions; a yearning to show strength with an election year looming as well as the gridlock in the attempts to release the 52 American hostages held in the US embassy in Iran.
Just over four decades later and similar geo-realpolitiking travails the world anew. Ukraine has replaced the United States as the orchestrator of the outrage.
Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, says he does not want Russian or Belarusian athletes at the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024 if fighting is still raging in Ukraine with Russia and its ally Belarus.
Threat
And he has threatened that his country will boycott the Paris event even if the athletes from Russia and Belarus compete under a neutral flag.
Several eastern European countries – notably Poland and Latvia – are firmly behind Zelensky.
On Tuesday, their campaign received a boost – albeit symbolic. European lawmakers at the Council of Europe urged the IOC to exclude Russian and Belarusian athletes from international competitions such as the Olympics rather than seeking ways to allow them in.
The 46-nation Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (Pace) held a two-hour session in Strasbourg of its panel for sports issues.
The powwow was to help draft a report on the question of barring the two countries’ athletes and officials.
“Imposing a war has to have a clear consequence,” said Mogens Jensen, a member of Denmark's Social Democratic party.
“Sport also has to take its responsibility and the only one clear message to send is to exclude the athletes.”
Fairness
The IOC said last month that it would be unfair to penalise Russian and Belarusian athletes on the basis of their passports. And, the IOC added, so long as they were happy to compete without any of the nationalist paraphernalia such as flags and anthems and had not expressed support for the invasion, Russian and Belarusians could test their mettle in Paris.
Teams, though, will not be allowed.
The views during the Pace session would not have been a shock for the IOC delegation of veteran sports administrator Francesco Ricci Bitti, the Armenian wrestler Arsen Julfalakyan and the Namibian shooter Gaby Ahrens.
Their canon? That sports events cannot only gather nations in a happy-clappy communion and that governments deciding which athletes can compete would effectively end international sports.
Ahrens, who chairs the Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa Athletes’ Commission, said: "Unfortunately in Africa, we are very familiar with the issue of armed conflict between countries and within countries."
Desire
And referring to the talks emanating from the Africa Athletes’ Forum in Algiers last month, she added: “Athletes should never pay the price of a conflict whatever it is and wherever it is.
"Politics should not put pressure on sport to withdraw from its fundamental values of solidarity and unity."
But try espousing that line in a meeting in certain parts of eastern Europe.
“That’s no explanation at all,” fumed the veteran British politician George Foulkes. “We’re here defending democracy. I found the special pleading for sportsmen quite sickening.”
'Twas ever thus. The IOC’s attempts to pitch sports guys and gals together has often been a sacrifice of values.
Surely someone in the IOC movement had an inkling that the National Socialists in 1936 in Berlin were building for something dodgy?
Communion
Nearly 90 years on from the triumphs of the black athlete Jesse Owens over the local white will, the IOC’s stance of trying to bring everybody together looks increasingly surreal.
Rather like its reluctance to delay the Tokyo Games as the coronavirus ravaged the world in 2020. The IOC bosses evntually yielded to that killer.
Alexandra Xanthaki, a United Nations-recognized human rights adviser, told the Strasbourg session that exclusion from sport based on an athlete’s passport is discrimination.
“Blanket retribution against athletes actually undermines peace,” she added during her intervention.
Perhaps. But it would take otherworldly optimists to believe Russia would end the war because its athletes take part in an Olympic Games
Decision
“The IOC’s heavy reliance on alleged human rights violations [against Russian athletes] is unjustified and without legal merit,” said Ukraine’s deputy minister for sport, Andriy Chesnokov, in a speech delivered online.
France’s sports minister, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, told the session that the close links between sport and political power in Russia were very much alive. The IOC, she insisted, had to decide its definitive stance.
A right old mess 15 months from the spectacular river ride launch of the Paris extravaganza.
Were the war in Ukraine to end, the Olympic marketing teams could promote "Goodwill Games". Former foes could feast on friendliness and Paris could become amity ville without the horror. Sweet dream sequences would be made of this.
Power
But if the fighting continues and the IOC maintains its push for inclusion, France could still deny entry visas for Russian and Belarusian athletes.
That decision would come from the French leader President Emmanuel Macron. Such a move would go down well in Kyiv, Warsaw and Riga but it wouldn’t be greeted with merriment in the IOC’s corridors of power in Lausanne.
So what? Why would Macron risk a prestige-damaging boycott of an event that is supposed to embellish his legend all because of 500 Russian and Belarusian athletes?
Back in 1980, Carter was seeking a second term as president. In 2024, Macron will be midway through his second and final term as French supremo.
The IOC has work to do.
