THE IMPURE OLYMPICS

THE IMPURE OLYMPICS
By Dick Meister

President Bush remains firm. He’s not about to join some other world leaders
who plan to boycott the opening ceremonies of this year’s Olympic Games in
Beijing because of China’s harsh treatment of Tibet. Why, says our
President, that would be a political act -- and the Olympics are not about
politics, but about sport.

Oh, sure. Then why are contests between individual Olympic athletes treated
as contests between the athletes’ nations? Why are we concerned primarily
with whether medal winners from our country outnumber medal winners from
other countries? Why the loud chanting of “U-S-A! U-S-A!” and vigorous
waving of U.S. flags by American spectators at the Games? Isn’t that
politics?

Why has China used its role as host of the Games to try to boost its
standing in the world, as all previous hosts have done? Isn’t that politics?

Why indeed did Bush, in a re-election campaign ad in 2004, boast that his
policies had resulted in the presence of “two more free nations” -- Iraq and
Afghanistan – in the Olympic Games that year, “and two fewer terrorist
regimes”? Isn’t that politics?

And it isn’t just politics that puts into serious question the naïve concept
of the Games as simply athletic contests. For the Games are above all
commercial, above even politics – a grand opportunity for athletes,
broadcasters and the makers of fine athletic equipment to make lots of
money.

The athletes become human billboards, their uniforms bearing highly visible
brand names. Sweatshirts, swim trunks, footgear, just about anything that
can hold a product label sports one, competing for space with the “USA”
label for the edification of television viewers worldwide.

Although the largest chunk of the billions of dollars involved goes to TV
networks for advertising, some of the athletes, including supposed amateurs,
also do very well by trading on their celebrity as medal winners to get
lucrative endorsement deals. And, as we now know, the lure of victory and
its hefty rewards has led some Olympic swimmers, sprinters and others to
turn to illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

The athletes are hardly competing strictly for the sport of it. To many of
them, winning in the Olympics means a chance to make lots of dollars --
sometimes millions – by endorsing particular brands of sports gear,
breakfast cereal and just about anything else they can get paid for
pretending to prefer at the expense of gullible, star-struck fans.

The commercial hype for this year’s Olympics has hardly begun, but you can
be sure it will at least match the excessive profit-chasing that marked the
last summer Games, in Athens in 2004.

“Excessive” may be too mild a description. Consider, for instance, the
efforts of McDonald’s, named “Official Restaurant of the 2004 Games” in
exchange for contributing an estimated $65 million to the Games’ operating
budget. Perhaps aware that its establishments were posssibly not everyone’s
idea of where health-conscious Olympians might choose to dine, McDonald
recruited several world-class athletes to speak highly of the company for
undisclosed but undoubtedly handsome fees.

The recruits included tennis star Venus Williams. She actually told a news
conference that “becoming a McDonald’s athlete” was one of her childhood
dreams come true, along with winning two Olympic medals, four Grand Slam
titles and competing alongside her sister Serena, also a “McDonald’s
Athlete.”

Williams was a piker, however, compared to the greatest Olympic hustler of
all, swimmer Michael Phelps, who won eight medals at the Athens’ Games. He
picked up millions for informing us about the merits of a wide variety of
products, most profitably swim suits made by a firm whose name was
prominently displayed on the suits of many of those in the Games’ water
sports competitions. The label was as omnipresent in that venue as the
familiar swoosh label of another advertiser was in virtually all
competitions, in the water and out.

Endorsement payments were only part of the rewards given Phelps and other
top Olympians. Some of the advertisers they served – “sponsors,” as they
were called euphemistically – handed out bonuses for medal-winning
performances.

How quaint it seems, the notion of long ago that the Olympic Games exemplify
athletics in its purest form, free of political and commercial influence.

Copyright © 2008 Dick Meister

Story ID:	3756
Written by:	Dick Meister (bio, link, contact, other stories)
Story type:	Musings, Essays and Such
Location:	Beijing China
Year:	2008