By Jaideep Shergill
By the time you read this, the biggest spectacle on the planet would have just wound down. As we do in the after wake of such large, dizzying events, it’s time to reflect on the past, present and future of the Olympic Games.
The ancient Olympic Games were a series of athletic competitions among representatives of ancient Greece. They were held in honour of Zeus and the Greeks gave them a mythological origin. The Games became a political tool used by city-states to assert dominance over their rivals. Politicians would announce political alliances at the Games, and in times of war, priests would offer sacrifices to the gods for victory. The Games were also used to help spread Hellenistic culture throughout the Mediterranean. The Olympics also featured religious celebrations and artistic competitions.
The modern Olympics haven’t changed much or have they? What was once considered a bastion of honesty, unity and competitive spirit have now turned into a mega-event riddled with corruption, greed and marginalisation.
The founders of the modern Olympic movement coined the famous motto, Citius, Altius, Fortius (Faster, Higher, Stronger) which should now read: Debilior, Tardior, Inferior (Slower, Lower and Weaker) when it has played out in recent editions of the Olympic Games.
In a recent interview with CNN, Malcolm Gladwell, one of my favourite ideas people, said: I think a core of the problem has now become that the Olympics — every year we make it bigger and more complicated. Every year the — every time, every four years, the cost of it grows. Every four years, the security concerns grow even more, sort of, terrifying. Every year the job gets harder and more expensive.
The IOC loves to present itself as a force for good in international relations. But the Russian drug scandal is a reminder that, as in the three successive Games in the 1970s and 80s at which one bloc or another staged major boycotts, the Olympics can be an irritant rather than soothing balm.
The humanitarian cost? A decade ago, the Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) reckoned that in the previous 20 years, starting with 720,000 forced evictions before Seoul 1988, more than two million people had lost their homes to provide Olympic venues. That was before a final figure could be estimated for Beijing 2008, let alone Rio. Sadly, COHRE now seems to be defunct; perhaps the office was demolished.
In the same interview, Gladwell goes on to say: I cannot believe that Brazil will look back on the Rio Games with anything but regret. At a time when the country is in crisis, they have devoted billions of dollars, not just in resources, but also the attention of their leadership has been towards essentially a set of games for the rest of the world that will leave them impoverished and the physical plant of which will be essentially unusable for the rest of its life. I mean, this makes no sense.
Sizewise, the Games are out of control. The IOC is beset by claimants – administrators for lesser sports – who are desperate for a slice of the action. The Olympics likes young sports such as skateboarding and big sports like tennis and, new this year, golf and rugby, though it degrades its own brand by staging second-rate tournaments. To the heroic zillionaire stars of those sports, the whole thing is at best an optional extra, often a distraction, and at worst a source of holy terror. (“OMG! They have ZICA mosquitoes in Brazil! I’m not going!â€)
So, what’s the way out? Are there even any solutions available?
Gladwell’s solution: There’s zero reason to have everybody in one place, right? This notion that everything has to take place in Rio, or London before it, or — is so nuts, like where is it written that the rower has got to row within the same geographical proximity as the runner has got to run, right?
No, break it up into logical parts, four, five parts, and have a country take each part. For example, I’m a big running fan. Can I just say how absolutely insane it is to have people run long distances in equatorial Brazil in the month of July, right?
A recent article in a leading newspaper suggested an even more interesting solution, starting with the premise that the politics and money is the root of all evil. It is this ceaseless search to find the next host that is most of all wrecking the Olympics, inducing cities to fritter billions on facilities that have no useful afterlife and destroy the lives of the poor who get in the way. The same process has produced such monstrosities as the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and now lying in wait for us all, the 2022 Qatar World Cup.
For the Summer Games at least, there is a potential solution: returning the Olympics to its ancient home. Greece is ideally placed geographically. Athens produced a serviceable Games in 2004, after much panic, cockup and, doubtless, corruption beforehand. It is now thought to have a world-record number of venues rotting away to no purpose. Take away the need to start from scratch every four years and the event – even allowing for Greece being Greece- could acquire the orderliness and patina of tradition and calm programme of improvements that attend the golf at Augusta and the tennis at Wimbledon.
On a lighter note and if all else fails, I am sure Shobhaa De can help us with the best solutions, all since she has everything figured out and has more gold medals than even Michael Phelps in a category she owns which is “shooting ones’ mouth offâ€