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The
Olympics Games is dominated more by nationalism and commercialism
than sport
 Forget for
a moment about political grandstanding, lip-synching and other tricks
at the Pyongyang-influenced mass games opening ceremony. Forget the
amazing performance of Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt. For a flavor of
the Olympics, look at two statistics: Michael Phelps won eight gold
medals in as many days. And, India, population 1 billion, won its
first individual gold since it first competed in the Olympics in
1900.
Indeed, in
this Olympics the combined efforts of 10 major developing countries – Brazil, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Egypt, Mexico, South
Africa, Vietnam and Bangladesh netted together just nine golds
compared with China’s 51 and with most of the rest going to the
US, Europe and Australasia.
Somehow
something is wrong with a medal system for what is supposed to be
triumph of sport and individual effort, not of nationalism and
commercialism so evident in Beijing.
Phelps is
doubtless one of the greatest ever Olympic swimmers. India for sure
does not have a sports culture or much interest in team games beyond
cricket and hockey. But the very fact that one individual can win
eight golds in the space of a few days says volumes about the
maldistribution of Olympic medals which in turn adds to feverish
nationalistic competition for places in the medals tables and the
weighting of sports with scant regard to their popularity, visual
appeal, athletic demands or universality.
Top medal
winners are invariably swimmers. Phelps follows in a long line of
names including Mark Spitz of the US, whose record he surpassed.. The
reason is simple: swimming and diving events account for no less than
45 gold medals with many events being short-distance ones in
different styles which enable one person to take part in several
events. Phelps won more than Spitz because there was one more in
which he could compete.
There are
a few athletic events – short distance running – and
track cycling in which it is possible for one person to get up to
three medals, team and individual. For a few other events individual
as well as team medals are on offer. But mostly it is impossible to
compete for more than one medal. A sailor for example has to stick to
one class of boat. He cannot try for medals in different classes.
The water
events – swimming and diving – are so overloaded that
they account for almost the same number of gold medals as whole of
the athletics program of track and field events ranging from the 100
metres to the marathon and including all the throwing and jumping
events, plus the triathlon.
Although
swimming is undoubtedly a popular event in many countries, some also
see a hidden racial bias in this medal distortion. In general terms,
Caucasian physiques are best suited to swimming, which explains why
there are almost no African-American swimmers of note and the
swimming events have always been dominated by the US, Europe and
Australia. Some physiques are just better for some sports. Caucasians
dominate swimming just as people of West African ethnic origin
(African-Americans and Caribbeans) dominate sprints and wiry people
from north and east Africa in longer distance running.
All which
helps account for the fact that other countries have often focused on
climbing the medals table by concentrating on a few other events
where medals are in abundance despite the low level of public
interest and participation. Thus, for example, there are no less than
18 golds for wrestling. Weightlifters collect no less than 15 gold
and the shooters a similar number for a sport that has few followers
and has, judging both by attendance and media coverage, almost no
spectator appeal. Track cycling is dominated by riders from the tiny
number of nations with access to the velodromes and high tech
machinery required.
But
sports with active followings and huge numbers of global participants
such as dinghy sailing, rowing and road cycling are relatively
under-represented as are widely practiced non-western sports. Such
exotic events as equestrian dressage, women’s hammer throwing
and 10-metre air pistol shooting continue to get medals while games
such as squash with huge numbers of players in many countries –
not least Pakistan and Egypt – are still excluded.
There is
another curiosity about medals. Weightlifting, boxing, judo and
wrestling all hand out medals relative to the weight of the
participants. So why not do the same with athletics, or with that far
more internationally popular sport, basketball where height is a
determining factor? The Philippines, for instance, is fanatical about
basketball but the relatively short stature of almost all southeast
Asians means that it, like most of Asia, will never be able to
compete with teams averaging 2 metres (6ft 7inches) – the US
average.
Maybe team
games should not be in the Olympics, originally a contest between
individuals. Most of them anyway, notably football (soccer) have much
bigger tournaments of their own. (World Cup soccer attracts bigger TV
audiences than the Olympics in most of the developing world). A
single medal for a team event is anyway almost irrelevant when the
media – and the IOC – are fixated on the medals table.
Meeting
different demands of nations and their preferred sports is not easy
but there is a strong case for radical reform of the medal system and
introduction of a few new sports widely played in the developing
world and which do not require hugely expensive facilities or vast
amounts of money for athletes’ training, whether provided by
the state or commercial sponsors.
China may
feel proud to be top of the medals table. But it got there by using
just the same regimented methods and state money that once pushed
Russia and (East) Germany to excel. Once their brutal communist
systems collapsed, so did their medals tally. So maybe we should now
be congratulating them, not China, for relying more on individual
initiative than state power to get medals. And congratulate India,
Brazil, Indonesia – and some European countries like Sweden –
that won few if any medals and all those do not seem too bothered
about not spending money on sports to bolster nationalism but would
rather spend on playing fields for schools and for the people at
large.
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