Think Again: The Olympics

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By John Hoberman July/August 2008

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Thrill of victory: For China’s communist leaders, the Beijing Games are a matter of national pride.


Web Extra: For a tour of the most controversial Olympics, see our photo essay at ForeignPolicy.com/extras/olympics.“The Olympics Aren’t Political”

Yes, they are. International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge said in March, “We do not make political choices, because if we do, this is the end of the universality of the Olympic Games.” Two weeks later, Rogge observed indignantly, “Politics invited itself in[to] sports. We didn’t call for politics to come.” But after 75 years of watching the political manipulation and exploitation of the Olympic Games, can anyone actually believe this?

Trapped by its grandiose goal of embracing the entire “human family” at whatever cost, the IOC has repeatedly caved in and awarded the games to police states bent on staging spectacular festivals that serve only to reinforce their own authority. Of course, the most notorious example is the 1936 Berlin Games, which were promoted by a network of Nazi agents working both inside and outside the IOC. Pierre de Coubertin, the French nobleman who founded the modern Olympic movement, called Hitler’s games the...