Olympic-Size Skepticism

When some TV network needs another artificial awards show, one possibility could be the Fameys, for international marketing. Bill Clinton’s literary agent deserves one for selling an unwritten autobiography for an unimaginable sum. The bottled-water industry merits the Bouteille d’Or for persuading millions of Americans to purchase and portage a commodity available free by faucet. However, the Grand Marketing Prize goes to professional sports, which permeate America’s life. The winner: the International Olympic Committee, which isn’t a pro sport but looks, sounds, acts and smells like one.

Once, the Olympics were inspiring international gatherings of individual amateur athletes striving for excellence. Then came TV. And more money than any weightlifter could raise overhead. The athletes don’t get the money, of course. That’s for the Olympic bureaucracy and its plutocrats.

They just elected a new presiding plutocrat to replace Juan Antonio Samaranch. Big surprise: Jacques Rogge, the outgoing president’s favorite, is the new president, having campaigned against the Olympic-size over-commercialization that his mentor encouraged. We’ll believe that campaign plank when the IOC returns NBC’s $3.5-billion check for broadcast rights. Now, the bronze medal finisher, Canada’s Dick Pound, who negotiated the TV rights package and investigated the briberies, is seriously questioning the gold medal finisher’s commitment to reform.

Maybe he’s a sore loser. Maybe it’s also time to seriously question the entire process of this hallowed but sullied international body cluttering the field with its sordid financial shenanigans and internal maneuverings during all the years between the actual Games. Pretty soon we’ll have cities competing for the right to host the next internecine Olympian struggle. Salt Lake organizers can scalp tickets to them. Let’s admit it: The Olympics is a big business with little accountability. Does anyone doubt the secret vote awarding Beijing the 2008 Games was anything but commercial entry into the world’s largest national market? Never mind human rights.

We need continuous public scrutiny of what once seemed a uniquely idealistic institution. For starters, maybe the Games’ drug screenings should test organizers for hypocrisy.