What Olympic spirit? Athletes are doing it for themselves
Larissa Dubecki
April 1, 2008
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Australia’s refusal to take part in any boycott is against the Games’ ethos.
Wayne Carey’s tortured confessional on Enough Rope last night ought to be enough to euthanase the notion long held dear to Australian hearts that sporting champions are by definition role models. It won’t, of course. We’ll keep expecting greatness from them, both on the field and off, complaining bitterly when they disappoint us, surreptitiously lowering the bar so it doesn’t happen too often.
This collective mythologising is one of the few reasons I can think of for the inclusion of AFL footballer James Hird and aerial skier Alisa Camplin in the list of delegates to Kevin Rudd’s Australia 2020 Summit over notable rejectees such as feminist social commentator Eva Cox. She’d certainly have something worthwhile to say. Camplin and Hird? I’m not so sure. We have a troubled relationship with this automatic anointing of champions as heroes. We expect them to embody greatness, both in competition and out, and yet in the process we accept, even encourage, them to be selfish, and single-minded in the pursuit of their goals to the point of solipsism — such as Australian Olympic swim team captain Grant Hackett. His sport might have taken him across the globe many times, but he revealed the fishbowl-like parameters of his chlorinated existence when he declared that he didn’t support any sort of boycott of the Beijing Olympics over China’s bloody crackdown in Tibet, adding that “hopefully that issue does die down a little bit”.
Unfortunate choice of words aside, Hackett is echoing Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates, who described the Olympics as “a force for good”, saying, “It is not the role of the IOC to take the lead in addressing such issues as human rights or political matters, which are most appropriately addressed by governments or concerned organisations.”
It’s an unfortunate stance, because he’s directly contradicted by the Olympic Charter. It states: “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 and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.”
It’s a fair argument that across-the-board Olympic boycotts never have, and never will, achieve anything concrete but succeed merely in punishing the athletes who miss out. But the IOC and its Australian underlings seem determined to go the other way by letting the Olympics become a propaganda coup for the Chinese. They want it both ways: to maintain the charade that the event is one giant global olive branch (the highfalutin motto for the Beijing Olympics is “one world — one dream”) instead of a tarted-up example of rank nationalism, while denying everyone else the opportunity to harvest the potent symbolism of the event.
Not everyone’s rolling over in such a compliant fashion as the Australians. The best suggestion so far has been the boycott of the opening ceremony various European teams are exploring (and world leaders such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel have announced they won’t be attending the ceremony out of concern for human rights abuses).
While a boycott of the opening ceremony has been spoken of as a great sacrifice that shouldn’t be expected of the athletes, it can’t be too much of a sacrifice: swimmers such as Hackett, who perform in the first few days of competition, won’t be attending anyway because the late night might hinder his preparation.
There’s also some interesting lateral thinking going on out there. The German water polo players, for instance, are considering wearing orange bathrobes as a gesture of solidarity with Tibetan monks.
Sounds silly? I agree. But if the Olympic movement and the athletes who participate want to keep up this whole charade that the four-yearly sports extravaganza is somehow about global harmony it oughtn’t be too much to hope they can show a knowledge of the world beyond the line painted on the bottom of the pool or the lane markings on the track.
When the Australian Olympic champions stand on the dais in four months’ time, we ought to consider the question of what, exactly, we are applauding. Their individual brilliance? Their personal sacrifice, their personification of a blinkered single-mindedness that puts the flabby good intentions of the rest of us to shame?
Or will we be thinking about their reflection of the glory of the nation, or maybe the taxpayers’ money that went into the victory, or the sponsorship money that will start pouring into their bank accounts (everyone loves a winner, baby, especially one who drives an Audi)?
Maybe it’s time we collectively grew up and acknowledged that they’re not doing it for us. They’re doing it for them.
And if they’re not doing it for their own personal glory, they’re doing it for breakfast cereal and muesli bars, for finance companies, for shiny new cars, for watches and toothpaste and high-tech sportswear that promises to make everyone a champion.
If they want to keep up the pretence that the Olympics is somehow about our better selves they should at least harness the power of the symbolic and spend a few hours mooching around the athletes’ village instead of fronting up to the opening ceremony at the Birds Nest Stadium in yet another drab team uniform. It would be one small, simple gesture that might represent something larger. But at this stage the Australian team will be attending, and proving in the process that they’re yesterday’s heroes, today.
Larissa Dubecki is a staff writer.
but that is something that won’t happen.
