Do the Olympics Still Matter?

The Olympics were a surprising success, and their basic idealism, structure and pageantry endure.

“The inauguration of the revived Olympic games today was a delight to the eye and an impressive appeal to the imagination,” The New York Times reported in 1896.

Today’s Olympics remain immensely popular, if broadcast contracts are trusted indicators. Hundreds of countries maintain huge organizations solely for the Olympics, and athletes all over the globe share some vision of an Olympic dream — a fairy tale idealism that persists as the best buffer to cynicism.

In some ways — too many ways, critics argue — the Olympics are stuck in time, a 19th century construct floating through a 21st century world.

“They’ve evolved, or not evolved, this system completely separate from the rest of society,” said Han Xiao, a former member of the United States national table tennis team who is now active in the Olympic movement. “And that’s where a lot of the problems come in, whether it’s with corruption or imbalances in power that lead to athlete abuse or human rights violations. If you’re not keeping up with the advances that other areas of society are making, or you’re not subject to the oversight of society as a whole, it’s kind of predictable that these things are going to happen.”

In short, the Olympics are built on excess, tangled in geopolitics, rife with corruption and cheating. Each Olympic cycle raises uncomfortable questions about sustainability, environmental damage and human rights.

The Games are presented as apolitical, but that is both impossible and untrue. The honor of holding them has faded; the Olympics strain to attract host cities, which are often left staggering in the aftermath. Climate change is shrinking the map for viable locations, especially for the Winter Games.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/17/sports/olympics/tokyo-games-scandal-bribes.html