No Olympic truce
Aweek ago, the Paris Olympics opened to subversion and showers. While 850,000 people were affected by the disruption of French trains travelling from north, east, and west into the capita, rain fell on the specular opening ceremonies, polluting the Seine and preventing swimmers from training in the river.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) rejected Palestine’s call for the exclusion of Israel over the Gaza war and brutal West Bank crack down and antiwar, anti-Israel protests erupted in the streets of Paris. Ignoring the ancient practice of an Olympic Truce, Israel has continued its offensives in Gaza and the West Bank, compelling the French police to mount 24-hour protection for Israel’s team. Undaunted, the games have gone on.
Trouble is nothing new. Since the first modern era Games in 1896, the Olympics have survived wars, attacks, political contestation, doping, and covid.
The original Olympic Games, which date to 700 BC, were held every four years in honour of the chief god Zeus at the sanctuary of Olympia in the Peloponnese. Competitors came from Greek city states observing an Olympic truce which enabled athletes and visitors to travel safely to Olympia.
The Games continued when Greece fell under Roman rule in the 2nd century BC and ended in 393 AD. The all-male events included foot, horse and chariot races, boxing, discus throwing, and wrestling.
Although based on religion, the Games provided ambitious Greek rulers with occasions to cement military and political alliances. France played a key role in the revival of the games. French historian and teacher Pierre de Coubertin founded the IOC in 1894 with the aim of promoting global understanding through sports.
The first Olympiad was held in Athens in 1896 in the world’s largest stadium. There were just 245 competitors, nearly all Greeks, but there were sportsmen from 14 other countries, including the US. More than 100,000 attended the opening.
The second Games took place in Paris in 1900 and attracted 1,000 "Post-war Olympics were skewed by the Cold War and neo-colonialism and subjected to boycotts, banning, bullets and bombs. France, Britain, Greece, Switzerland and Australia have been the only countries to be represented at all the Games since their resumption in 1896."
athletes, including 20 women. The Games merged with the Paris World’s Fair and went on for five months. A distinction was made between amateur and professional competitors.
The venue of the third Olympics was set for Chicago, Illinois, but organisers of a rival exhibition in St. Louis, Missouri, threatened to stage its own sporting events to compete with the Olympics.
De Coubertin capitulated to St. Louis. While athletes from a dozen countries attended these Games, the first held outside Europe, only about 79 from outside North American took part due to St. Louis location and tensions arising from the Russo-Japanese war. France did not send a competitor but a French athlete resident in the US took part, claiming to represent France.
The 1908 Games were in London and the 1912 Games in Stockholm, and the 1916 Olympics were in Berlin in the run-up to World War I. The well attended 1920 Games were in war-wounded Antwerp in Belgium and the historic 1924 Games in Paris.
They inspired the 1981 film “Chariots of Fire” depicting the gold medal foot races of Britons Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddel. The 1928 Games were held in Amsterdam and the 1932 Games in Los Angeles during the Great Depression.
Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party, which had risen to power in Germany in 1933, filmed the 1936 Games to promote White racial superiority and antisemitism.
Nevertheless, Hitler congratulated US sprinter and long jumper Jesse Owens, the Black grandson of a slave, after he won four gold medals, the most of any athlete. Owens later complained that US President Franklin Roosevelt “snubbed” him and “didn’t even send [him] a telegram” of congratulations.
Suspended for 12 years during World II, the Games did not resume until 1948 in London which was struggling to recover from German blitz bombing. Postwar Olympics were skewed by the Cold War and neo-colonialism and subjected to boycotts, banning, bullets and bombs. France, Britain, Greece, Switzerland and Australia have been the only countries to be represented at all the Games since their resumption in 1896.
The 1956 Malborne Games, the first to be staged in southern hemisphere, were boycotted by Egypt, Iraq, Cambodia, and Lebanon after Egypt was invaded by Israel, France, and Britain.