Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the Modern-Day Olympics, wrote these words more than 90 years ago. And yet only this weekend did Saudi Arabia make the decision to allow women to compete in the Olympics for the first time. (Don’t expect to see any athletes competing in a bathing suit or leotard, though.) Qatar, excluded from consideration for 2020, announced it would submit another bid for the 2024 Olympics. Yet 2012 will be the first year that it also has fielded an Olympic team that includes women.
Writers like Mark McDonald have remarked that the IOC’s track record on equality issues is inconsistent. The IOC never sanctioned countries like Saudi Arabia for its discrimination of women, but was none too hesitant to bar South Africa from the Games for 28 years because of Apartheid. I’ll go even further: Why did the IOC still allow an Olympics to be held in Nazi Germany after it was widely known that the country had established anti-Semitic policies? Why did the IOC award the 2008 Games to China, a country which fails to respect human rights, including those of its own athletes?
What I find more egregious than the inconsistency is that the IOC has banned countries at all. Let me explain. It’s easy to applaud the sanction of countries for their unethical policies. Initially I supported the banning of South Africa. It disgusts me that people have been, and are still being prevented from competing in sports because of gender, race, or creed. But then I thought about the hundreds of South African athletes who never got the chance to compete in an Olympics because their country was banned. How many men and women who were fast, strong, agile, and hard-working never got the chance? How many innocent athletes, who didn’t support the actions of their government, were denied the chance to fulfill their dreams of competing in the Olympics? How many gold, silver, or bronze medalists did we never see during these 28 years? And yes, this same argument can be made for all of the black South African athletes, or the Saudi women who never were afforded a chance.
I don’t have a solution, but it isn’t fair to punish the innocent for the immoral and ignorant actions of their government. It’s no different than those countries which decide to boycott Olympics. They are decisions from which no one wins and everyone loses.
Faster, Higher, Stronger.
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