From Aug. 4 to 6, I was in Paris, watching some of the most talented athletes in the world compete at the 33rd Olympiad. As someone who loves watching sports as much as she loves people-watching, I found the Games thrilling. On the streets of Paris, hundreds of thousands of fans sang their countries’ fight songs. Royal orange filled up each stadium — evidence that the Dutch had arrived. Each French athlete — from the unranked sprinter to the record-holder swimmer — was greeted with passionate shrieks from the home crowd. I, of course, rooted for my fellow Americans, waving my flag proudly until my arms burned. But amid this sea of national pride, there was one huge demographic missing: the Russians.
Russia was banned from the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics because they broke the Olympic Truce by invading another nation — Ukraine — just days after the Olympics ended. This year, at the 2024 Paris Olympics, the ban was enacted because the Russian Olympic Committee claimed regional sports organizations of the Ukrainian Olympic Committee as their own, violating the Olympic Charter. Their conduct in the war itself, war crimes and all, was not what got them banned.
The Olympics claims to try to avoid bans based on policy or social issues. Yet, during apartheid, the IOC banned Rhodesia and South Africa because “organizations worldwide … put enough pressure on the IOC,” per Victoria Jackson, a sports historian and Arizona State University professor. But if the scale for banning countries is based on global approval, why did the 1980 Olympics in Moscow proceed, despite 60 countries boycotting the Games for the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan? There seems to be some sort of moral line at play here. Yet, it was somehow not crossed in 1936, when Nazi Germany showcased the Berlin Olympics as a spectacle to show off their ‘superior’ Aryan race. Nor did it ring alarms when Hutu extremists slaughtered 800,000 Rwandans. Why does apartheid constitute a ban, but genocide does not? This moral line, then, is clearly confusing and contradictory.
The IOC needs to decide if they should ban countries based on policy or social issues in the first place. The IOC’s members are sports leaders, not political leaders — perhaps they should not be the judges of morality. After all, how is one to decide the amount of pain or blood that constitutes an Olympic ban? It is easy to declare that the Games should simply be nonpolitical — that they should not ban any countries. Indeed, the Olympics are a time for coming together. Yet, the idea that the Olympics are a perfect time of national and international harmony is a complete myth or at least a naive dream. The Games have always been filled with conflict. One cannot hold onto the perfect version of the Olympics without acknowledging reality. If countries should be allowed to compete, there will be conflict and some countries will face little retribution for some horrific crimes.
An Olympic ban is a powerful cultural sanction. Countries like Russia and China use the Olympics as propaganda to showcase their power, going as far as doping their athletes to win medals. Subsequently, these bans hit countries at their very core: their image. Hurting this image becomes increasingly important in countries like Russia, where popular support for dictators like Putin enables these problematic policies to continue unchecked. Hence, there is a large impetus to ban these countries.
At the same time, the Olympics remain a beacon of hope. It is beautiful to see a time when everyone from all countries gather together. The Olympics are a place where, despite the polarization in America, I cheer with my fellow flag-bearers. A place where I can see a North Korean fan in real life, and not just hear about them on the news as a result of Kim Jong Un’s nuclear arsenal. I’m not here to offer a clear answer, so much as a question: How do we balance unity and justice? It’s obvious there’s no easy answer but, without examining this question, we will continue to both let some countries paper over their crimes and prevent others from participating in a cultural phenomenon that brings the world together.
