“the leaders of the XXXI Olympiad will echo their claim that anything done in the name of sport is above and beyond public scrutiny or political protest”
“This is a far cry from the way the Greeks would have seen it. According to historian Nigel Spivey, the games of antiquity never ignored or hid from their political significance, serving as an unabashed display of military power. Far from an apolitical exercise, stadiums were
decked with the spoils of armed conflict. Altars were attended by specialists in sacrosanct military intelligence; events were contested to the point of serious injury and fatality; and the entire program of athletic ‘games’ could be rationalized as a set of drills for cavalry and infantry fighting.”
“In other words, “all games were war games.””
“If the spectacular events we now watch in high definition do not portray themselves this way, it is largely due to the father of the modern Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who worked hard to obscure the political nature of sport.”
“Coubertin saw the modern Olympics, revived in the late nineteenth century, as a “philosophico-religious doctrine.” Politics was not to interfere with the “sacred enclosure,” where “the consecrated, purified athlete only” would be seen as “an officiating priest in the religion of the muscles.” A French aristocrat and romantic idealist, Coubertin developed a theology of athletics that would transform the world of sport, much like the Reformation revolutionized Western civilization.”
“As is often the case, utopian ideals and half-truths lead to confusion and disappointment, which has animated the modern Olympics since their inception. But the romance of it all was infectious.”