People make political statements on the Olympics stage.
The Olympics season is here, the two-week gala festival that is supposed to show the world the best athletes available. It is supposed to be a sports lovefest. But it isn’t. When the modern Olympics was presented to the world in 1896, organizers didn’t want women athletes around because women athletes didn’t compete in the ancient games in Greece. That was not true. Some women did compete in events suited for women like golf, tennis and fencing in the first modern Olympics. In 1904, Olympics organizers sanctioned what was known as the Anthropology Days, a two-day event in St. Louis where so-called uncivilized tribes competed in the Olympic events of the day. In 1914, the International Olympic Committee reiterated no women in the glamor sports of track and field.
In 1936, Germany hosted the event and the Games became known as the Hitler Olympics. The 1940 and 1944 Olympics never took place because of World War II. South Africa was tossed from the Olympics movement in 1964 because of apartheid policies. There was the Munich Massacre in 1972 when nine Israeli athletes and two Israeli coaches were killed in a terrorist attack. There was an African countries boycott of the 1976 Montreal Games. The United States led a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games when US President Jimmy Carter tried to pressure the Soviet Union to get out of Afghanistan. The Soviet Union refused to send a team to the Los Angeles 1984 Olympics and got Warsaw Pact nations to follow its lead. The awarding of the event has become politicized. Countries have rejected hosting the Games as voters have said no because of cost which has angered IOC delegates. The IOC has permanent observer status at the United Nations. Politics and the Olympics is nothing new.
The Eiffel Tower
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