Analysis : Olympics Have Doubled Their Message

Enthusiasts and supporters of the Olympic movement had much to cheer after the recently completed 90th Session of the International Olympic Committee. Not only were new organizing cities named for Olympic and Olympic Winter Games in 1992, a new era in Olympic organization and responsibility finally dawned.

Precisely because the International Olympic Committee has changed the cycle of Olympic Winter Games to alternate summer and winter competitions every two years, the Olympic flame will burn more brightly than ever before.

Too many observers of worldwide sport and the Olympic movement attempt to guard the Olympic Games and Olympic Winter Games as a relic to be cherished as one would an antique or a memory. Never to be changed, always to be presented as it has been in the past. This is the fault of Olga Connolly’s commentary which appeared in The Times on Saturday, Nov. 8.

Thankfully, the view of the current version of the International Olympic Committee is different. It recognizes that the goals of the Olympic movement--notably to inspire and lead sport within the Olympic ideal, thereby promoting and strengthening friendship between the sportsmen of all countries, as well as to insure the regular celebration of the Games--require bold initiative and new thinking to meet the competing ideological and political challenges of other nations, not to mention sports organizations.

This was behind the gradual changes brought to the IOC’s eligibility code, which will eventually allow all athletes to compete in the Games, regardless of occupational status as professional athletes. This style of thinking led to the IOC’s formation of a drug testing program in 1968, years before it came to fashion in 1986. And by changing the cycle of the Winter Games to 1994, 1998 and beyond instead of continued pairing with the Olympic Games in 1996 and 2000 and so on, the IOC has again made a quantum leap in the power of the Olympic movement.

Connolly posits that international camaraderie and national exhilaration are now provided by the Goodwill Games and other international events. While this is true to the extent that the energy output of a 100-watt light bulb and a hydroelectric dam can be compared, this kind of increase in Olympic-goaled events was central to Baron Pierre de Coubertin’s quest and is fully and properly supported by the IOC. In 1894, de Coubertin stated clearly his vision for athletic games that would “give the youth of all the world a chance of a happy and brotherly encounter which will gradually efface the peoples’ ignorance of things which concern them all, an ignorance which feeds hatreds, accumulates misunderstandings, and hurtles events along a barbarous path toward a merciless conflict.” Would de Coubertin have even considered that his idea not be extended to games organized by others, if they had intended benefit in mind? Certainly not. The events of our time, however, have taught the IOC to recognize its uniqueness and that of the Olympic and Olympic Winter Games.

The Olympic Games and Winter Games stand alone among multi-national meetings of any kind, let alone athletic competitions. They provide fierce competition between individuals and nations through sport alone, without regard or reward for political or social viewpoint but only for excellence on the field of play. Contrast this to the Soviet-organized Goodwill Games where, against the backdrop of athletic competition, the opening ceremonies were little more than a prime-time Soviet commercial for nuclear disarmament. The Olympic idea of peace achieved by international and interpersonal relationships developed through sport itself was replaced by a promotion for peace in the name of sport. This is certainly not without value, but we need to feel more warmth from a genuinely “Olympic” flame.

This was provided by the IOC’s move of the cycle of the Winter Games. Instead of having to endure the wait of four years between periods when Olympic ideals are brought to the public’s collective mind, the IOC will not be able to kindle its flame every two years and fan the fire of its ideals within the public’s consciousness before it grows cold after the previous celebration.

The international public responds to the Olympic Games and Olympic Winter Games like no other athletic celebrations, with the possible exception of soccer’s World Cup. Neither of the Olympic sports celebrations need each other for lead-ins; these are well provided by the world championships held by each individual sport and the world-record efforts in individual events that draw the public’s attention to the sporting world year round. For competitors, one Games remains the ultimate in his or her competitive life depending on their event; what skier could find his Winter Games medal opportunity less exciting because the Olympic Games won’t be held in the same year?

Now, the Winter Games can grow on its own, without the burden of being the “set-up” event for the Olympic Games. More sports can be added, and close observers of the IOC fully expect some sports to be transferred from the roster of the Olympic Games to the Winter Games. This will ease the burden on the summer event organizers and expand the horizons of the Winter Games beyond the ice and snow events that were its genesis and will always be its sustaining core.

It’s true that business and economic considerations also favored movement of the Winter Games to a separate cycle from the Olympic Games. Any disbelief in the benefits of the scheduling change to the National Olympic Committees simply ignores the nature of NOC operations. Beginning after the 1992 Games, NOCs will be able to prepare for one major task at a time: Winter Games in two years and Olympic Games in four. This is of critical benefit to the vast majority of NOCs--including ours in the United States--which depend on a remarkably small number of core staff and many volunteers. It will inevitably result in better service for our teams. Equally important are the economic implications of Olympic events held every two years, which should greatly increase the fund-raising opportunities for NOCs and provide greater satisfaction to the thousands of individual donors, who will see the results of their contributions in only a few months instead of three or more years.

Benefits to Olympic organizing committees are just as obvious. They may be able to collect some small additional amount in television rights fees, if for no other reason than the two Games will be held in different budget cycles. Moreover, sponsorship opportunities will be enhanced because of lessened cross-competition from sponsors of opposing Games in the same year. Not to mention the better opportunities for more intense public interest in the organizing city, which more often than not is attempting to increase tourism, especially among Winter Games cities. Witness Sarajevo, now a major winter tourist resort, using its Olympic facilities of 1984.

Finally, the myth of Winter Games-helps-Olympic Games togetherness is a chauvinistic and insensitive slap at the Winter Games, long a stepchild of the Olympic Movement. The Olympic Games stood on its own merit alone from 1896 to 1924 without assistance and flourished brilliantly. Now it is time to give the Winter Games its due and provide it a solo position on the schedule. It will be more special alone than as a warmup act for its big brother.

The late Dr. Nikolaos Nissiotis, an IOC member in Greece noted “it is important that all theoreticians in the Olympic Movement remember that Olympic principles do not solve the world’s problems, as other politico-economic and social theories and ideologues claim to do. The Olympic Movement should be considered a way of life, reaching beyond these promises.” Through its scheduling changes, the IOC gives new life to its Winter Games. The Olympic Movement need no longer slumber for four years at a time but can awake the world with its message twice as many times in the same four-year period. Somewhere, the Baron de Coubertin is smiling. His ideas are finally important enough to be placed in public view more than once every four years.