The Summer Olympic Games got off to a wet start in Paris on 26 July 2024, on a day when three lines on France’s high-speed TGV rail network were the subject of arson attacks. The 33rd Olympiad, or 30th if you discount three Games that were numbered but never happened (1916, 1940, 1944), was the first to have an opening ceremony away from the designated main stadium. The highlight of the four-hour-long ceremony was a 3 ½-mile-long flotilla of 85 barges that conveyed 6,800 athletes from 206 nations along the River Seine, from the Pont d’ Austerlitz to the Pont d’ Iéna. The Olympic flame was lit in the Jardin des Tuileries and a giant plume of blue, white, and red smoke soared into the sky from a bridge over the Seine. Celebrity performers included Celine Dion, Aya Nakamura, and Lady Gaga. Some events failed to make the mark, such as an alleged parody by drag performers of Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper.’ This latest sporting extravaganza, the third Olympic Games to be hosted in Paris after 1900 and 1924-the latter of ‘Chariots of Fire’ fame, will end on 11 August, by which time 329 gold, silver, and bronze medals will have been handed out to the world’s latest crop of Olympic champions. A total of 10,500 athletes from 206 countries will participate, while 110 Heads of State will dignify the occasion by their presence.
As would be expected, the modern Olympic Games have steadily drifted away from the event as envisioned by the founding father, Baron Pierre de Coubertin. Coubertin, a French aristocrat, was influenced by the ideals of ancient Greece and by the lofty beliefs of three English proponents of athleticism: Dr Thomas Arnold, William Penny Brookes, and John Ruskin.
The original Olympic Games were held every four years at Olympia in the western Peloponnese, from 776 BCE to 393 AD. The first modern Olympic Games, at Athens in 1896 attracted participants from 14 nations. They were preceded by the Much Wenlock Olympian Games in Shropshire, first held on 22 October 1850, and a series of modern Greek Olympiads in Athens, from 1859 onwards. The first Winter Games were held in 1924 and the first Paralympic Games in 1960.
Coubertin launched the modern Olympian movement at a meeting in the grand amphitheatre of the Sorbonne University in Paris on 23 June 1894, when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was established. He proposed the Olympic motto of Citius, Altius, Fortius (Faster, Higher, Stronger), to which the suffix of Communiter (Together) was added in 2021. Coubertin was elected second President of the IOC in 1896, succeeding Demetrius Vikelas. He designed the Olympic symbol of five interlocking blue, yellow, black, green, and red rings in 1913, representing the union of five continents and the colours of the national flags of the member states at that time. In recent years, Coubertin’s image as a visionary, peace activist, and humanist have been somewhat tarnished by revelations of his misogyny and colonial and patrician attitudes. It is noteworthy that female athletes were only allowed to participate in athletics and gymnastic events from the 1928 Amsterdam Games onwards.
Hosting an Olympic Games is an expensive business, as the host city has to develop relevant infrastructure, including sports facilities, transport links, and an Olympic Village for athletes. The City of Montreal was thus saddled with debts after the 1976 Montreal Games, as it overinvested in unaffordable infrastructure. Only five out of eleven Games since 2000 have generated a profit, while the 2012 London Games only just broke even. Financial independence was first secured in the 1980s, courtesy of contracts with TV networks and financial investment by corporate partners and sponsors, including sports apparel manufacturers and other major global brands, as the creeping commercialisation of the Olympic Games got underway. The Olympic Partner Programme was created by the IOC in 1985, in the recognition that support from the business community is crucial to funding, marketing, providing technical services, and supplying products. Host cities now expect to generate a financial surplus through their hosting of the Games, with the added benefits of urban regeneration and “soft power” for the host nation. Uniquely, and despite the extent of corporate involvement, Olympia stadia remain advertisement-free zones.
Amateurism faced its death knell during the IOC presidency of Juan Antonio Samaranch. Creeping encroachment of Olympic sports by professional sportsmen led to the overriding in 1987 of Rule 26, which restricted the Games to amateur athletes, to allow professional tennis players to enter Olympic tournaments. In 1990, Rule 45 finally opened the door to other professional athletes, just in time for the 1992 Barcelona Games.
Doping scandals related to the use of performance-enhancing drugs have further tainted Olympic events, given the high financial and reputational stakes. State-sponsored doping facilitated the Olympic success of the erstwhile German Democratic Republic, while Ben Johnson’s “victory” at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and several other unjust wins resulted from individual failings.
Politicisation of the Olympic Games has been reflected in state-initiated propaganda exercises (Berlin 1936), anti-racism statements (Mexico City 1968), terrorist attacks (Munich 1972), boycotts (Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles 1984), and exclusions (apartheid South Africa; Russia and Belarus from Paris 2024). In Paris, approved Russian and Belarusian athletes will have to compete under the AIN (Athlètes Individuels Neutres, or Individual Neutral Athletes) banner in place of their national flags.
The Olympic Games continue to challenge and redefine the boundaries of “sport”, as they expand beyond the traditional pursuits of track and field athletics, gymnastics, aquatic sports, racket sports, combat sports, martial arts, football, cycling, equestrian events, shooting, archery, and the like, to include such new entrants as skateboarding, sport climbing, and surfing (all from 2020 onwards) and breaking in 2024. The Olympian sport portfolio also includes various obscure sports, whose modus operandi and methods of scoring are unfamiliar to most people, apart from a small and select niche audience.
The latest mega-event, the largest sporting gathering in the world, is already drawing in the crowds, dominating TV screens, generating enviable revenues, and creating new superstars, while dethroning or disappointing other contestants. It seems less certain whether it will prove to be a unifying force in a divided world and encourage wider sports participation at grassroots level, or merely continue to reflect disparities between the developed and developing world in terms of resources available to support and develop elite competitive sporting activities. Whatever the eventual outcomes, it is appropriate to wish the participants and organisers all the best in their endeavours, while hoping the spectators receive a fair return for their money.
Ashis Banerjee