Editor's note: Anna Antseliovich heads the sports practice at the Moscow-based legal group Clever Consult. She also works as a senior researcher at the Federal Science Center for Physical Culture and Sport (Russia).
The Olympic Games have always been a source of
genuine interest for spectators as Olympians have repeatedly demonstrated astounding
capacity of the human body and mind in winning Olympic gold, or by achieving
success despite all odds.
At the ancient and even the first modern
Olympic Games, there was no concept of a national team; each Olympian represented
only himself/herself. However, at the 1906 Intercalated Games[1] for
the first time, athletes were nominated by the National Olympic Committees
(‘NOCs’) and competed as members of national teams representing their
respective countries. At the opening ceremony, the athletes walked under the
flags of their countries. This was a major shift, which meant that not only the
athletes themselves competed against each other, but so too did the nations in
unofficial medal standings.
The nomination and selection of athletes by their
NOCs to compete under their national flag and represent their country is a
matter of pride for the vast majority of athletes. However, to what extent does
such a scheme correspond to the ideals which the Olympic Games were based on in
ancient times? Is it possible to separate sport and politics in the modern
world?
Olympic Principles
The ancient Olympics began as a religious
celebration in honor of the ancient Greek god Zeus. All freeborn male citizens
of Greece could participate. The modern Olympics no longer maintain religious
significance and are based on modern ideas and principles.
The principles of Olympism are enshrined in the
Olympic
Charter under “Fundamental Principles of Olympism”. The first paragraph of
the Charter reads: “Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining
in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. Blending sport with
culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy
of effort, the educational value of good example, social responsibility and
respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.” Thus, it should seem
obvious that Olympism is centered on a human, his/her body, will, and mind. Nations
are not mentioned at all in this section. On the contrary, “sports
organizations within the Olympic Movement shall apply political neutrality.”
Moreover, the Olympic Charter enshrines the practice
of sport as an inherent human right: “Every individual must have the
possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the
Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of
friendship, solidarity and fair play.”
Paragraph 6 continues with “The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms outlined
in this Olympic Charter shall be secured without discrimination of any kind,
such as race, color, sex, sexual orientation, religion, political or other
opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”
Based on the above, we can conclude that anyone
has the right to participate in competitions covered directly or indirectly by
the Olympic Charter, and no one person or entity can be deprived of this right.
The only limitation on participation is an individual athlete’s qualification and eligibility.
Entering by NOC
The Olympic Charter Rule 40 provides that “the
competitor, team official or other team personnel must be entered by his NOC”
to participate in the Olympic Games.
Rule 41 and its By-law deal with cases where
there are issues with the nationality of an athlete, such as a change of
nationality, a change in the status of the territory on which an athlete
resides, etc., but clearly states
that, as a general rule, an athlete shall be a national of the NOC that is selecting
him/her.
In previous years, the IOC allowed so-called independent athletes to
participate in the Olympic Games (such teams had different names but the same
status). In 1992 they were athletes from Macedonia and Yugoslavia, in 2000 from
East Timor, in 2012 athletes from the Netherlands Antilles and South Sudan, in
2014 from India, in 2016 from Kuwait
and Russia,
and in 2018 from Russia.
These athletes competed as independent/neutral athletes for various reasons,
such as the absence of the NOC, the suspension of the NOC from the IOC, doping
scandals, or international sanctions.
The increased role of the State that is
expressed by the appearance of the national symbols on the athletes' uniform,
the playing of national anthems, and the flying of the national flag at the
award ceremony has given rise to an unofficial medal count, which now - whether
the IOC wants it or not - plays an extremely important role at each Olympic
Games. Spectators intensely monitor which country is leading the medal count -
sometimes even more than the competition itself. More and more countries are
competing against each other, drawing up medal plans in an attempt to prove
that their training system is the best and the most progressive, which, in
turn, shows the superiority of their political and/or financial system. This
all takes the spectators’ attention away from the purity of revelling in the capabilities of the human body and
spirit and admiring the achievements of athletes.
Such an approach to the formation of Olympic
teams (at least in individual sports) does not comply with the principle
enshrined in Rule 6 of the Olympic Charter “the
Olympic Games are competitions between athletes in individual or team events
and not between countries..” and it seems that it is unfair for several
reasons.
First, while for most
athletes the very opportunity to represent their country at the most
important sporting event is a source of great pride, for other
athletes,
it is not. For example, refugees who
have fled their homeland, for fear of torture and/or death. For them, it is
unacceptable to compete under the flag of their country. Their “national” NOC could
not enter them in any event. To circumvent this problem, the IOC created a team
of 10 refugee athletes who competed under the IOC flag and anthem for the first
time at the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games. In 2018, at the 133rd session of
the IOC in Buenos Aires, it was confirmed that the Tokyo Olympics will also
feature a refugee
team. However, refugees are not the only group of athletes who have difficult
relations with the authorities and/or political regimes. There are many places
in the world where people are struggling for independence or with repressive
regimes. For these athletes to compete under the
national symbols used by such authorities is fundamentally and morally
impossible because it contradicts their political views (for example, some of
the Kurds may not be happy to represent Turkey, some of the Basques may
be happy to see any flag but not a Spanish one, some individuals
residing in Northern
Ireland may feel themselves hurt and unhappy to compete under the Union
Jack, the flag of the United Kingdom, Tibetans
and Uighurs
hardly want to glorify the flag of China that suppresses any attempts to show
their national identity, etc.).
Second, despite the requirement of the Olympic
Charter to observe political neutrality by NOCs, in reality, this is not always
respected. A vivid example is a current situation in Belarus,
where until February 2021 the NOC was headed by President Aleksandr Lukashenko,
after whose election mass protests broke out in the country resulting in
numerous human rights violations. Since February 2021, the
NOC has been headed by
his son, Viktor Lukashenko. Athletes who took part in the protests were persecuted
and sometimes even imprisoned.
It is obvious that such athletes have no chance to be selected by the NOC for
the Tokyo Olympics and even if they were to be entered, they would unlikely be
proud to perform under the symbols of a regime that they consider illegitimate.
The two examples demonstrate that performing
under a national flag can sometimes have grave significance. Athlete can either be completely barred from competing in the Olympics should they not
hold the correct political allegiance, or be forced to compete under a national
flag that does not reflect their political views.
The author considers that a solution to the abovementioned
problem consists in the registration of an athlete, if he/she meets sports
criteria for participation in the Olympic Games, directly by the IOC in the
personal capacity. Each athlete will then be able to independently decide to
use the national symbols that correspond to his political views, or to refuse
to use any symbols in general. This approach is consistent with the abovementioned
principles.
Conclusion
The Olympic Games have evolved enormously from
local games as part of a religious celebration to a worldwide sports festival
watched by millions of people. The Olympics are the epitome of international competition
between athletes and between nations. Political controversy and scandals
surrounding the Olympics often overshadow athletes' successes. To remove the
political underlying basis of the Olympics, the approach of entering athletes by
the NOCs should be abandoned, and athletes (at least in individual sports)
should be allowed to compete in a personal capacity stripping away political
connotations that ought to be extraneous to sports competitions.