How Geopolitics Casts Its Long Shadow Over The Olympics

The Olympic Games is the epitome of a global village, a sense of communal bonhomie, bringing together eclectic mix of individuals from every nation in a display of triumph, endurance, passion while cherishing the ideals of sportsmanship, compassion and camaraderie.

The symbols speak for themselves with the Olympic Torch representing ‘peace, unity and friendship’, and the symbol of the five rings representing the five continents.

Yet with regard to the Tokyo games, the Olympics hasn’t entirely mitigated geopolitical tensions; it has inadvertently presented it on a grandiose spectacle.

Power Equations

From the inaugural games in 1896 in Athens to 1936, the venues were all in the West, between the United States and Western Europe, matching hubris with hosts. Sports diplomacy was superseded by supreme politics and was well noted in the infamous 1936 Berlin games, where Nazi Germany’s fascism was on full display with Leni Riefenstahl’s ‘Triumph of the Will’ accentuating Nazi propaganda. Seminally, the 1936 Games is remembered for the look of incredulity on Adolf Hitler’s face as African-American athlete Jesse Owens won gold medals, busting the myth of Aryan supremacy.

The first games since the restart was in London in 1948, where World War II antagonists Germany and Japan were not invited. The onset of the Cold War had begun, and the Soviet Union was invited, but Moscow refused to send a team.