I love the Olympics. Every few years they are the highlight of my summer or winter and my TV is usually on them while I do work. It doesn’t matter the sport, season or gender. You can place good money that I am watching the Olympics for two weeks every few years. Nothing beats reading about what the athletes gave up to represent their country on the highest stage, watching their work come to fruition, seeing their reactions after a great performance and then watching the athlete singing to their national anthem. I have no shame in saying that moments like these bring tears to my eyes.
However, I can’t help but wonder as I watch these particular Olympics that these next few may be the last of their kind. The IOC has been surrounded in controversy, athletes and national Olympic committees cheat, no city wants to or can afford to hold the Olympics without debt or worker controversy and the true meaning of the Olympics seems to have been lost amidst the arguments and hatred.
As empty Olympic stadiums stand abandoned and forgotten, questions are raised regarding the actual impact of such an event on a particular city and country. Sure, a mega-event like the Olympics raises tourism surrounding the event and can give jobs to those who need them, but at the same time, people are displaced and few nations have the ability to ensure that the attractions built can continue to be used. While cities like Salt Lake, Lake Placid and Vancouver can continue to use their facilities, the majority of former host cities, such as Sarajevo, Sochi, Beijing and Atlanta find theirs in ruins. So when forming a bid, cities must ask: are the costs actually worth it in the long run? Can they continue to use the facilities constructed for ongoing profit? Does the city itself has the infrastructure in place to host such an event? Do the citizens want to host such an event when they get minimal profit? Since the answer to these questions are usually "no," you see more and more cities starting a bid and then removing it from consideration, creating a shortlist of cities that can host the games.
When founded in 1892, the IOC defined the Olympic movement as the activities in which the athletes engage in promoting sports worldwide through national and international institutions, promoting ethics and fair play, fighting against doping, raising awareness of environmental problems and cooperating with public and private organizations to develop “sport for all.” While athletes have done their part to promote world fitness, sport across ages and the importance of healthy competition, the other definitions of the Olympic movement have me upset. Fighting against doping and unethical practices in sport is a great fight to have, if you can fight it, and raising awareness of environmental problems is extremely important if people can listen. But when the entire event is shadowed by doping allegations against athletes and entire teams, something has to be done. Banning a team from competing, taking away medals, etc, doesn’t work. The IOC has to rethink how they go about changing why athletes turn to steroids and creating an open forum of discussion so athletes leave the fighting to the pool, field, court, ice or gym instead of in the media where everyone can see, so the Games are seen as a competition instead of a bunch of doped-up athletes against clean athletes.
Unfortunate as it may seem, the Olympics have lost their value as an event to bring people together in favor of the profit that companies make from the athletes and games. Even though I love watching the commercials aired during prime time coverage, it makes me frustrated to think about the exploitation of such an event. The focus is removed from the athletes themselves to companies whose logos are plastered across the athletes’ bodies and the stadiums, and to the companies broadcasting the events.
While I watch Katie Ledecky celebrate and cry over her new world record, as I scroll through Twitter reading people’s accounts of the games, when I see young kids watching in amazement with the hopes of standing on that podium, I hope the IOC will change. I hope that either how the Olympics are structured will modernize, or that the movement itself will realize the faults of its actions. Cities and countries can’t be forced to upend their entire economic system to support two months of tourism. So should just one city continuously host the summer games and one for the winter? It may not be the best idea, but at least national Olympic committees won’t be forced to send their athletes to places where the accommodations aren’t finished and the facilities aren’t able to hold them. Even though I don’t believe that the Games should end completely, there is something that needs to be done to make everyone have an equal chance, and to make the Games great again.
