The Games throughout history

Politique Internationale — What historical value should be given to the Olympic Games? Is it an event in its own right, likely to reflect the state of the world? Or should we rather consider the Games as a succession of small episodes of limited scope?

Florence Carpentier — The first Olympic Games were organized in Athens in 1896. When an event is based on more than a century of existence, as is the case with the Olympic Games, it is fully part of the history of the world. The Games are the most publicized event on the planet, just after the Football World Cup, with hundreds of millions of viewers each time. The Olympic rings are a universally known logo: few emblems can boast of such renown. With Olympism, we are indeed in the presence of a phenomenon which traverses History and participates in it.

P. I. — Since the beginning of the Olympic adventure, which Games have marked history the most?

F. C. — The world of Olympic competitions has evolved so much over the years that it is more instructive to approach it by major periods. Until the First World War, the Olympic Games did not escape a certain confidentiality. Admittedly, it was up to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to choose the host cities, but its mission stopped there: the Games were first and foremost what the organizers wanted to do with them, and in their decisions and achievements they did not refer to the Committee. This is how the first editions, from Athens to London in 1908, were merged into larger events, such as the Universal Exhibition of 1900, and furthermore, how some women were even able to participate in competitions, against the advice of Pierre de Coubertin. From 1920, the IOC regained control of the organizing committees. The Olympic protocol of the opening and closing ceremonies that is familiar today (the Olympic flame, the athletes’ oath, etc.) was gradually invented during this period. The choice of Antwerp in 1920 was highly symbolic: the city was completely destroyed during the Great War. Olympism aims to help reconstruct a bond between peoples. This does not mean that harmony reigns within the IOC. In 1925, Coubertin was dismissed from his own Committee, in a sense a victim of the Olympics’ success. Finally, the 1936 Games, organized with pomp in Berlin by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister, have marked the history of world sport over the long-term, but also the history of Nazism and that of the international relations which preceded the outbreak of war.

P. I. — The two world wars in a certain way have punctuated the Olympic Games’ increase in power …

F. C. — These are not the only breaks in the long trajectory of the Olympics. The Cold War was also a pivotal time. In 1952, in Helsinki, the USSR competed for the first time. The IOC found itself confronted by new problems: for example, whether to recognize the two Germanys, as well as the two Koreas. The decolonization of Africa in the 1960s also forced the IOC to position itself against South African apartheid, under pressure from newly independent countries. Later, the 1972 Olympics in Munich were the scene of a Palestinian commando operation. For Golda Meir, the head of the Israeli government, it was unbearable that Jews should again be killed on German soil (1). The 1980s in their turn introduced a new form of rupture: at the head of the IOC, the Spaniard Juan Antonio Samaranch, impelled a major shift towards the commercialization of the Games. In edition after edition, the Olympic Games came to crystallize ever more important economic interests for the media and the sponsors. Here we touch on the quintessence of the business of sport, which has become one of the hallmarks of our modern societies.

P. I. — When did the Olympics really start? Is Baron Pierre de Coubertin really a pioneer, or primarily an heir of ancient Greece?

F. C. — The modern Games are more a creation than a renovation of the ancient Games. Coubertin received a humanist education and he knows his classics, but his project follows its own logic. We are no longer in Antiquity where the Games had a strong religious dimension, with rites and sacraments, where a taste for excelling meant military exercises were exalted, and where the Greek cities mutually challenged each other. At the end of the 19th century, Coubertin was first of all focusing on peace through sport in a context of rising nationalisms. Not to mention the range of disciplines, completely different from one epoch to the other.

P. I. — Let’s talk about Olympic athletes. Are they modern day heroes? To what extent can they become historical figures?

F. C. — Whether or not they participate in the Olympic Games, great athletes are integral elements of the star system. But Olympism, because it goes beyond the boundaries of sport, can give them an even stronger aura. No one has forgotten the name of Jesse Owens: in 1936, at the Berlin Games, this black American athlete scooped up four gold medals (2) under the eyes of Hitler, who had intended to make those Games proof of the superiority of the ‘Aryan race’. Nor has anyone forgotten Black Power’s podium at the Mexico City Olympics in 1968: Tommie Smith and John Carlos, gold and bronze medalists respectively in the 200 meters, raised a black-gloved fist to the sound of the U.S. national anthem. This photo, which went around the world, is one of the best-known pictures of the 20th century. However, this provocative but non-violent gesture, aimed at denouncing racism, shattered the careers – if not the lives – of the two athletes.

P. I. — What will determine whether Paris 2024 goes down in history or not?

F. C. — It all depends which side you are on. For a French person, and especially for a Parisian, the campaign is first and foremost for Games that do not put economic interests before those of the population. This implies, for example, that Paris 2024 does not cause the price of real estate to explode or put a strain on public finances to pay for gigantic equipment that would be underused; we also want infrastructures to be established on a long-term basis in the landscape. As it happens, there have been quite a few Olympics now for which this dimension, of facilities that are sustainable and ecological, has become a necessity. From the IOC’s point of view, Games that will leave a mark are Games that cause neither tragedy nor scandal. With regard to tragedy, we think obviously of terrorist attacks; and for scandal, to cases of doping.

P. I. — Does the IOC consider successful Games to be those to which every country can send a delegation?

F. C. — Of course, Games that bring together the greatest number of countries can capitalize on the image of a major sporting event free of geopolitical tensions and cultivating a feeling of rapprochement between peoples. For all that, we have to be honest: the IOC has never been very particular about the presentation of democratic credentials. This has been the case for a long time: in 1968, it did not blink when Mexico used arms to suppress student protesters. Less than a fortnight before the opening of the Olympics, soldiers had fired on the crowd at Plaza de las Tres Culturas, or Place of the Three Cultures, in Tlatelolco. More recently, decisions to organize the Games in Russia and China reflect the uncritical choice of authoritarian regimes that do not bother with respect for human rights. The IOC has always asserted its apoliticism: a line of conduct which allows it, for all intents and purposes, to turn a blind eye to reprehensible international situations.

P. I. — If the IOC takes cautious positions, it may be because of the way it is structured, around a small group of people who are attached to their prerogatives. Can the IOC be equated with an elite?

F. C. — It is difficult to argue otherwise. First of all, we are talking about of a small number of people within a global institution: the IOC today has 105 members, after having remained frozen at 70 for a long time. Next, the profile of those concerned is selective: the members of the Committee come mostly from the political, economic or diplomatic elites of their country. Finally, the mode of recruitment remains fairly opaque and anachronistic: new members are co-opted, like in society circles of the 19th century. Geographical distribution does not mean much: some countries have up to four representatives on the IOC while others have none.

P. I. — Would you say that the central role of the IOC is contested?

F. C. — Coubertin had a very precise and ambitious idea of the IOC and the Olympics. He succeeded, from the beginning, in imposing a certain idea of sport and competition (a strict selection of the sports to be represented, athletics as ‘king’ of sports, national teams, the refusal of professionalism until 1980, etc.). He then invented a syncretic staging that borrowed from military protocols, religious rituals and symbols of peace. After all, the goal of the IOC has always been universalism. It is inevitable that this type of control will be challenged. Over the years, certain alternative competitions, such as the Spartakiades organized by the USSR between 1928 and 1934, the People’s Olympiad in Barcelona in 1936 or the GANEFO (‘Emerging Forces’) games in 1963 and 1965 have tried to compete with the Games. But these attempts remained ephemeral.

P. I. — To return to Paris 2024, this will be the first time that the Games have shown strict parity between the number of male and female athletes. It will have taken more than a century …

F. C. — Originally, the Olympic Games had no goal of integrating women. For Coubertin, sport conveyed fundamentally masculine values. Courage, a taste for effort, strength or even the desire to challenge oneself were qualities associated with ‘virility’ at the time of Coubertin. Women’s responsibility was to encourage and congratulate their husbands and sons, but certainly not to take part in the competitions themselves. A Frenchwoman tried to get things moving: in 1915, Alice Milliat ran the first women’s sports club and offered all sports to all women; in 1917, she laid the foundations for the first women’s federation, before the creation of an international federation in 1921. In 1922, after having failed to bring women into the Olympic Games, Alice Milliat decided to organize the first ‘Women’s Olympic Games’ which she scheduled in Paris with the participation of England, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland and the United States. Three other editions followed, in 1926 in Sweden, in 1930 in Prague and in 1934 in London. Despite its growing success, this completely original historical initiative could not withstand the economic crisis of the 1930s and especially the opposition of the IOC and the IAAF (International Athletics Federation), which were disturbed by such emancipation.

P. I. — Even the IOC was slow to recognize there was a place for women …

F. C. — At the 1980 Games, women still represented only 15% of participants. That same year, however, two women made their appearance at the IOC. In 1996, the Olympic authorities finally set up a ‘Sport and Women’commission that was charged with considering the feminization of competitions. By imposing an obligation to have women’s events in all sports at the Olympic Games, they set off a domino effect: the international federations were also obliged to adopt a policy in favor of women, soon followed by the national federations. The 2012 London Olympics marked a step forward: for the first time, every delegation had at least one female athlete. We can only welcome the perfect parity between men and women achieved for Paris 2024. This equality comes as a reward that has been long in the making, even if there are still significant imbalances between countries and between sports. Another objective remains the feminization of the management of sports institutions. There too, the recent election of the first woman, Brigitte Henriques, to the head of the CNOSF (French National Olympic and Sports Committee) is a powerful symbol.

P. I. — By extension, are there minorities who have taken advantage of the Games to assert their rights? Or at the very least, to hope for a modicum of recognition?

F. C. — The Olympic Games are a tremendous sounding board. Successfully getting a message across through the Games increases your chances of receiving an echo. The IOC still needs to become open to this type of initiative. But the institution is timid. You can see this with the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement: the IOC has done nothing, quite the contrary, for the Olympic scene to offer it room for expression. This is not the first time it has refused to commit to so major an issue. Why such an attitude? Again: the IOC claims to be apolitical. This allows it, as we have seen, to ignore authoritarian regimes, but also, in this case, not to take a stand in defense of human rights.

P. I. — How does one become a sports researcher?

F. C. — Family blood has something to do with it. My parents have always been very sporty and, as such, passionate about the Olympics. As a child, I wondered what could generate such enthusiasm for these particular competitions. Life has been such that I have always had the world of sport as a backdrop. After a scientific baccalaureate, I turned to university studies in STAPS (Sciences and techniques of physical and sports activities). I quickly became interested in the history of sport, which is an original and fascinating way of studying our history. And the history of the IOC is a world in itself. With my counterpart – and husband! – Patrick Clastres, I work more specifically on portraits of Olympic leaders.

P. I. — Sport has long been the poor relation of academic work: are things changing?

F. C. — Compared with twenty years ago, the perception intellectuals in the broader sense have of it is not the same. Having been considered as an element of ‘subculture’ for a long time, sport has changed in scope. Its interactions with economic issues, social changes, cultural issues and, of course, international relations are no longer in question. There will always be some disgruntled people who dispute this widening of sport’s perimeter, but it is undoubtedly a rearguard action.