Should the political policies of a country decide whether or not they host major world sport events? ...or is it better to use them to put pressure on the host country to effect change? For example should the Sochi Olympics be moved to protest president Putin's gay rights policy or should we go and have our athletes protest by them holding hands say? What would have happened if the 1936 Olympics had been moved?
A little late in the game to move them now given that they've been prepping the venues and the city for years and the games are only a few months. Hard to imagine a viable alternate at this point.
Yeah, every country that's ever hosted the Olympics is going to have other people that think they shouldn't host it because they do/don't do (whatever issue they care about). This isn't the Cold War anymore. Protesting the Olympics is just silly.
Agreed. The politicians and bureaucrats that decide on the boycotts aren't the ones being deprived of competing for something they've trained their whole life for.
The Olympic Committee decides where the games will be held. If the governments of participating countries want to boycott in protest, that's up to them. Personally, I think it would be a kind of poetic justice to put aside political differences and just go and kick their ass in every event. Just to piss them off.
Exactly. If there was ever an Olympic Game to boycott it would have been the Hitler Olympics--but that would have robbed Jesse Owens triumph in embarassing the Nazis.
Well it is possible to compete under the Olympic Flag. Such as what happened at the 1980 Moscow Games.
I don't think the effect of the protest will do much internationally. If you want to make a statement to your own people through a boycott, you can do so, but it's worth considering if it's fair to the athletes. It isn't going to change the policies of the country you're protesting, though. It's worth pointing out that, if the Olympics were only in countries with flawless human rights records (if such a thing exists), it would be a western-only club. This would completely undercut the idea of a truly international athletic competition.
Maybe Hitler would've realized the errors of his ways and World War II would've been avoided? Is that what you're wanting someone to say? The Olympic Committee is going to make their choice based on politics as much as anything and Russia's too big a power to ignore. Putin will just laugh as his team rakes in the medals if we boycott it. Why not? We'd be the ones looking silly over it.
So you move the Olympics, will that change Russia's laws? No. They are more likely to sue the IOC for lost revenue than having any kind of change in their laws.
The IOC is not going to move on a few months notice. Period. Heck they've already finalized who's hosting all the way to 2018. Start protesting Brazil or Korea if you want, but Russia's happening.
And it would still be the right thing to move them. If you want the luxury of hosting such a great thing as the Olympic Games, then behave. What's with the fatalistic opinions here? "Uuuh, it won't change anything, so why bother protesting or boycotting?"
i think all the countries should have rainbow clothing and make it the gayest olympics ever. that'd be cool and more likely to have an effect than just straight up boycotting.
I think the Olympics should be abolished, the IOC is corrupt, their rules about the games not being political are ridiculous, athletes not being allowed to protest things is bullshit.
Why ban the games because you think the IOC is corrupt, why not ban the World Cup whilst you are at it, FIFA could be just as corrupt. Surely the aim should be if these orgainsation are corrupt to make them uncorrupt. But in the real world no matter how hard you try there will always be those elemtns which are corrupt, be it in sport, politics, buisness etc...
Honestly, the only event I look forward to is Hockey in the Winter Olympics, so that's something that could be put in its own event. That being said, I'm also not competing. Those people might care a bit more.
You're expecting the IOC to do the right thing, a body that has been mirred in corruption. The world is filled with this idea that a small group can overcome anything with protesting and while that has happened in the past. The Olympics are in town for what, a month. So they lose the income, but it also isolates the Russian people, thinking "The World Doesn't Get Us" and nothing changes. There's a lot more than a month long sporting event needed to make the change you think will happen. Moving the Olympics is not going to change a damn thing.
They should have never been awarded, and neither should have been Beijing 2008 or the FIFA World Cup 2016 or 2020 to their respective countries.