From time to time, the elites who control the Olympic games have been accused of not living up to the ideals they are supposed to promote. The recent effort of these officials to bully a group of female athletes shows that the criticism is not misplaced.
The athletes in question are female ski jumpers, who have been lobbying the International Olympic Committee to let them compete in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games. The Canadian government supports the women, who believe that the IOC's refusal to sanction female ski jumping is a case of gender discrimination.
Leave aside the question of whether the IOC is guilty of sex discrimination. (For the record, the IOC says there are too few female ski jumpers to justify a separate event, to which the athletes respond that, in fact, female ski jumping has plenty of depth across more than a dozen countries.) More telling is the manner in which Olympic officials have responded to the lobbying.
The IOC's attitude, characteristic of exclusive and autocratic bodies, seems to be: How dare you challenge us? The IOC is sending a subtle message to the ski jumpers that it resents their public whining and, if they don't back off and remember their station, they won't be allowed to sell hot dogs at the Olympics, let alone compete.
Dick Pound, Canada's top Olympic official and a member of the IOC, has warned that the committee is likely to get "pretty ticked off" about being accused of discrimination. Those who tick off the committee need to be careful that "it doesn't come back and bite you," meaning that the ski jumpers could find themselves waiting a very long time to be allowed to compete.
Michael Chambers, president of the Canadian Olympic Committee, insists that these warnings are not threats but simply advice from people who know how the IOC operates. He, too, has urged the ski jumpers to be careful about how "aggressively" they make their case, lest they cause more trouble for their sport. The fear is that a vindictive IOC will not only prevent female ski jumping at the 2010 Vancouver games, but also ensure that they don't get to compete at the 2014 winter games in Sochi, Russia, either.
The ski jumpers consider this kind of talk to be intimidation, and it's hard to disagree. The IOC is a powerful organization, and has never been shy about exerting its privilege.
Because the Olympics is the biggest show on earth, it inevitably becomes politically charged, and there's no point pretending otherwise. Yet last week, Conservative MP and cabinet minister David Emerson made the suggestion that, in the lead up to the Beijing Summer Games, people should avoid talking about China's human rights record, because doing so could sully "the virtues of Olympic events and competitions."
If anything, we want the Chinese government to be self-conscious about its international image, otherwise it will have no incentive to pursue reform.
We cannot simply show up for the games and eat, drink, compete and leave -- all the while playing see-no-evil with regard to the human rights situation -- any more than we could enjoy the hospitality of a host who abuses his children and not speak up.
The Olympic spirit demands nothing less.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2008
