Berlin, July 14, 2021 (AFP) – The Olympic Games have long had a close relationship with politics, from Nazi propaganda to anti-racist gestures, officially outside the event, but in practice it is very noticeable.

“This politicization of the Games (of the modern era) goes back to their founder Pierre de Coubertin and the close connection between the nascent Olympic movement and the peace movement,” explains Professor Jean-Loup Chappelet of the University of Lausanne and Olympic history scholar.

“At the end of the 19th century, when the IOC was created in 1894, there was a desire to use the Games to promote peace,” he notes, “and the Games have always been more than a series of World Cup soccer championships,” he notes. from the very beginning there was a willingness to set a political goal for them. ”

Political weapons used by states have at times backfired as activists used their worldwide resonance to support their interests, whether through peaceful means (such as the anti-racist gesture of raised fists of black American athletes in 1968) or through violence (the bloody kidnapping of Israeli athletes Palestinian special forces in Munich in 1972).

… Exceptions The chroniclers of classical Greece state that Sparta in 420 BC. was expelled from the Games for non-compliance with the Olympic Truce, which imposed a break in the fight.

In the modern era, the exclusion of a country from the Games has become a measure of influence on the international community: the losers in the First World War (Germany, Austria, Hungary, Turkey, Bulgaria), and then in the Second World War (Germany and Japan) were excluded from the 1920 Antwerp Games and London 1948 respectively. Apartheid in South Africa (1964-1988) and Yugoslavia, which fell victim to international sanctions in 1992, are two other notable cases of exclusion from the Olympics.

… Boycotts On the other hand, some boycotted the Games in order to “impose sanctions” on the host country or to prevent the presence of a delegation from a “hostile” country.

This type of action was used primarily during decolonization and the Cold War, a movement that began in 1956. Egypt, Lebanon and Iraq did not attend the Melbourne Games to protest the Franco-British military intervention in the Suez Canal.

At the same time, Spain, Switzerland and the Netherlands refused to participate in the Olympics that year to condemn the Soviet Union’s crackdown on anti-government demonstrations in Budapest, while China withdrew due to the presence of a Taiwanese delegation.

Then there were “cross” boycotts of the 1980 Moscow Games by the Americans and some of their allies (due to the invasion of Afghanistan by the former Soviet Union) and the 1984 Los Angeles Games by the Soviet bloc. Two episodes especially symbolic for the Cold War.

Also very important was the withdrawal from Montreal 1976 of African countries that refused to participate in the event along with New Zealand, which agreed to play rugby against South Africa, responsible for the racist “apartheid” regime.

… Propaganda The Olympics of the modern era were fairly low-key at the beginning, but they took on a new dimension in Berlin in 1936, when the Adolf Hitler regime wanted to make the competition a grand spectacle in the service of Nazi propaganda.

“Since then, the Olympic Games have become a very important issue,” emphasizes Professor Chappele, “and this continued after World War II, in the face of constant confrontation between the Eastern and Western blocs.” The political symbol “has been used by many governments,” says the scientist.

“The 1960 Rome Games mark the return of Italy, the 1964 return of Japan, and then the Third World in Mexico in 1968. After the war (World War II), the Games became such an important geopolitical issue that governments took the bait and saw a political interest in organizing it. ”

Democracies also use some of the biggest sporting events on the planet as a showcase, like South Korea with Seoul 1988, Spain with Barcelona 1992, Britain with London 2012 or, as France intends to do with Paris 2024.

“Image benefit is even the main reason for holding the Games today,” the historian analyzes. “Why didn’t Japan want to cancel the Games when that was the simplest decision? Because it doesn’t want to keep up with Korea (South), which hosted the Winter Olympics (2018), or China, which is hosting the 2022 Winter Games. If the Games did not take place, the Japanese brand would suffer, ”he emphasizes.

… Fists Raised and Attacks Fist Raised American athletes Tommy Smith and John Carlos on the Mexico 1968 200m podium in protest against racism in the United States gained popularity in 2021 following the Black Lives Matter movement.

Four years later, in Munich, in 1972, the Games experienced the worst drama in their history: 17 people, including eleven Israeli hostages, were killed in an attack by the command of the Palestinian organization Black September.

In 1996 in Atlanta, an ultra-right attack killed one person and injured 111 others.

cpb / dr / gh / lca