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International Politics & the Modern Olympic Movement |
Olympic Site Selection
Atlanta: Case Study
In 1990, it is impossible to predict with any certainty the likely winner in the intense bidding campaign for the 1996 Summer Olympics. Six cities competed, with four of them—Atlanta, Athens, Melbourne and Toronto—generally regarded as stronger candidates than Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and Manchester, England. As political changes around the world continued, old alliances among IOC members faded and new ones formed. The crisis in the Persian Gulf may have also influenced the voting, which is conducted by secret ballot.
The selection procedure makes forecasting difficult. A city must receive a majority—45 of 88 votes for the 1996 Games—in the balloting to win. If no candidate receives that much support, the city gaining the fewest votes is eliminated and ballots are recast. The process continues until two candidates remain or a majority is achieved; thus, the winner might have to survive five rounds of voting.
Atlanta's successful bid to stage the 1996 Olympics represented a triumph of old-fashioned politics, and modern technology. When they could have easily let sentiment—Athens—or other factors influence their voting in Tokyo, members of the International Olympic Committee instead rewarded a city whose representatives went to great lengths to assure them comfort, safety and convenience. At the same time, however, by selecting Atlanta, the members chose the one candidate among the six finalists that most closely reflected the changing nature of the IOC itself, long an ivory-towered organization, heavily European, predominantly male and almost exclusively white.xviii
In the 1990s, just as third world nations have emerged as an important political force and consideration in global events, the IOC has become a more polyglot organization, with increasing sensitivity to ethnic and social issues as they intersect with sport. In the eyes of many IOC members who picked Atlanta over Athens in the final round of voting, Atlanta symbolized the degree to which racial harmony can unite a city, while in so many other places around the world ethnic differences and racial tensions continue to act far more divisively and destructively.
While no one could guarantee that boycotts would not touch the Games in 1996, as they have in four successive summer Games, Atlanta at least had the advantage of a stable political and financial environment. It would naive to suggest that the selection of Atlanta was achieved purely on moral grounds. Commercialism played a critical role as well, with heavy support from Atlanta's biggest corporate residents—Coca- Cola, a prime Olympic sponsor for many years, and the Turner Broadcasting System—and the common knowledge that Games staged in the United States are more attractive to American television networks, the IOC's largest source of revenues.
China 2000: Case Study
After months of preparations, the Chinese leadership formally announced its bid mid-1991 to become the host of the 27th Olympiad. Prime Minister Li Peng said in a letter sent to the International Olympic Committee that China would try "to make the 2000 Olympic Games a grand celebration in sports marking the advent of a new millennium with a better prospect of peace and friendship." Politics, not sports, underlie the Government's enthusiasm. The Games would be an important opportunity to win back international respect after the 1989 crackdown on democracy protesters, and a chance to unite the Chinese people behind a patriotic cause.xix
The Olympics would also give the Government a chance to redirect the spotlight of foreign attention from human rights issues to its achievements in building prosperity and a smoothly functioning capital. However, Human Rights Watch, an organization that monitors human rights abuses worldwide, is lobbying International Olympic Committee members in an attempt to gain IOC opposition to Beijing's bid to hold the 2000 Summer Olympic Games. Robert Bernstein, chairman of Human Rights Watch, said his United States-based organization received "an unacceptable response" from the IOC after his group had sent a letter to the IOC's President protesting the consideration of China as a host country. Bernstein said that Human Rights Watch might ask athletes to boycott the 2000 Olympics if China were selected as the site. Recently, China has released several priests and other political prisoners. Skeptical observers believe this is part of a public relations campaign to land the Olympics. In addition, IOC members have been assured by local and regional officials in China that there will be no opposition expressed to their visits.xx [See Appendix 1]
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The IOC President elated his Chinese hosts in May 1993 by discounting China's poor human rights record and praising Beijing's qualifications to host the 2000 Summer Olympics. By then, Beijing and Sydney were believed locked in a two-way race to host the 2000 Olympics, trailed by Manchester, England; Berlin, Brasilia and Istanbul, Turkey. China continued to place enormous importance on winning the Games, which it saw as a way to refute critics and raise its international prestige, still damaged four years after a bloody June 1989 crackdown on protesting students at Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Rejecting outright the idea that Beijing's bid would be hurt by its poor human rights record, Samaranch said IOC voting members, scheduled to decide on the site of the 2000 Olympics in Monte Carlo in September, would judge China on its sports records, not its human rights record.xxi
In legitimate protest against China's inhuman record on human rights, the U.S. Congress registered its opposition to Beijing as host for the Summer Olympics in the year 2000. [See Appendix 2] In fanciful theory, the Olympics is free of politics and the location is none of Congress's business. But politics intrudes all the time. Witness the American boycott—supported by China!—of the Moscow games in 1980 over the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, and Moscow's retaliatory boycott of Los Angeles in 1984, as well as the 32-year suspension of South Africa because of apartheid.
The State Department's 1993 annual report on human rights practices around the world said China's "have remained repressive, falling far short of internationally accepted norms" and that the Government still had not accounted for "thousands of persons" detained at the time of the 1989 demonstrations. Incredibly, the man who was Beijing's Mayor in 1989 and called for a crackdown on the demonstrators is now chairman of the city's Olympic Bid Committee.
Beijing lost by two votes to Sydney, Australia, in 1993's IOC election. In balloting of unprecedented secrecy, the IOC ended a costly, politically volatile contest. On the final day, Berlin, with a delegation including tennis star and 1988 gold medal winner Steffi Graf, opened the presentations by appealing for support to celebrate the end of its Cold War division. Sydney followed with a presentation emphasizing its modern infrastructure, its political stability and its intention to provide "the athletes' Games." The chairman of Beijing's bid committee, Chen Xitong, said, "The closed China of the past has now opened its doors. We fervently want to know more about the world and to have more friends in the world know about us. Hosting the 2000 Games will open our door still wider."xxii
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But, in a major political setback for the Chinese Government, the International Olympic Committee unexpectedly rejected Beijing's bid to hold the 2000 Summer Olympics and instead picked Sydney, Australia, to be the site of the millennium Games. In the end, Beijing's candidacy appears to have fallen victim to China's human rights record and arguments by Western politicians and human rights groups that a Government that continues to repress dissidents should not be rewarded with the honor of holding the 2000 Olympics.
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