Envisioned as a medium for inter-cultural communication
and peaceful democratic exchange, the Olympics have never failed to fulfil their purpose.
What originated as a simple sports competition in the 1890s is now the world's single biggest sporting spectacle. Some say it is also the world's leading peace movement, with more members in its rolls than the United Nations. In fact, you could say the founder of the modern Olympiad, French Baron Pierre de Coubertin, had failed to see that in a matter of decades the Games would become something profoundly different from what he had intended.
This transformation of the Olympics into an arena of meaningful global exchange is what makes it relevant for us all in a modern globalised world.
Initially a European movement, the gospel of Olympism had spread its realm of influence to China, Latin America, the USA and also India by the 1920s. During the First World War, de Coubertin was gravely concerned that the Games might be exterminated by the tumultuous political conditions created by continuous violence. This anxiety made it essential to seek newer pastures for his Olympic ideology and he began to see this expansion as the key to the survival of the Olympic Games.
The emphasis was to spread the Olympic gospel to areas unaffected by the war. If he could globalise Olympic affairs, de Coubertin thought, he would ensure that if not in Europe the Games would at least continue in other corners of the world. He was simultaneously growing increasingly anxious about the potential of the Inter-Allied Games being organised in the US. These Games, designated as the 'Military Olympics', were being planned in collaboration with the YMCA. Nervous about its bearing on the Olympic endeavour, de Coubertin wrote to Elwood S. Brown, the international director of the YMCA on 25 January 1919 objecting against the 'action of the YMCA in deciding to hold Olympics in France in 1919'.
Brown immediately wrote back allaying de Coubertin's fears, declaring the Inter-Allied Games 'is not a rival of the Olympic Games in any sense'. His assurance had a comforting effect on de Coubertin and this started a long association between the two that transformed the fundamental nature of the Olympic movement. It was at Brown's insistence that de Coubertin agreed to utilise the wide reach of the YMCA to spread the message of Olympism across Latin America.
Assured of de Coubertin's support, Brown officially presented his proposal to the IOC at Antwerp in August 1920, a session that is etched in Olympic memory for having officially approved the five Olympic rings. It is of great importance that Sir Dorabji Tata, representing British India, was present in this session and followed the entire deliberation with keen interest. The proposal stressed the idea that the YMCA and the IOC had similar goals and drew attention to the YMCA's global structure.
The YMCA had already held regional games like the Far Eastern Games in 1913 that helped in stimulating popularity of Olympic sports across the world and especially in South East Asia. IOC recognition, Brown insisted and de Coubertin concurred, would impart legitimacy to these efforts and this was the primary reason why the IOC unanimously accepted the scheme proposed by Brown.
Dorabji Tata had already learnt his lessons at Antwerp and soon after his return to India insisted on enlisting the support of Dr A.G. Noehren of the Madras YMCA for India's Olympic cause. In fact, the YMCA's early role in promoting the Olympic movement worldwide cannot be emphasised enough. Its international network provided a lifeline for those who wanted to set up an international sporting movement.
Once a truly global movement, there was no stopping the growing popularity of the Games, an appeal significantly enhanced following a spectacular staging at Berlin in 1936. Though the Second World War acted as dampner, the revival at London in 1948 was no less spectacular. And except a brief period of monetary strife in the early 1980s, the universal appeal of the Games has only escalated in recent times.
This is not to say, however, that the Games have not had their share of problems. An open show of black power in Mexico in 1968, the tragic murder of 15 Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972, boycott of the 1980 and 1984 games and the recent storm over the Olympic torch, the Olympics have never been short on controversy.
What is interesting is that much of this controversy has actually helped draw attention to the fact that the Olympic movement is not simply a sports movement. Rather, it is a movement that champions sport as a medium for inter-cultural communication and peaceful democratic exchange. In fact, it could be successfully argued following the international leg of the torch relay that the Olympic ideology promoted by the IOC since its creation is henceforth no longer founded on the unity of sport and culture alone, as extolled by de Coubertin at the beginning of the twentieth century, but completed - for the twenty-first century - by concerns for human rights and global harmony. This development within Olympic ideology, it can be suggested, is not only a sign of the times, but also a positive legacy of the modern Olympic Games.
Finally, the one area where the Olympic movement can still do better is on the issue of host city selection. Despite claims of being a real global movement, it has never been staged in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America or in the sub-continent. In fact, it will indeed be a major step forward for the Games if it decides to make one of these regions 'home' in the coming decade. With Doha no longer in contention for staging the 2016 Olympiad, it may well be that Dubai- by then a mega international city if the Dubai Strategic Plan (2016) is duly implemented, will help initiate a new epoch in Olympic history.
- Boria Majumdar is author of Olympics: The India Story (with Nalin Mehta), Harper Collins, 2008.
