The Rio Olympics concluded in August, enveloped from the heroics of Usain Bolt to the antics Ryan Lochte, the games were a sight to remember. The host city stood up to the occasion and expelled all the negative coverage they've been receiving in the lead up to the games (although one awaits to see how the people and the economy of Brazil fare in the aftermath of it).
During the games, I had an intriguing conversation with my good friend and colleague over lunch - "Are the Olympics racist?". The seeds of this article were planted then. But as usual I kept procrastinating until a couple of interesting articles I read, and a television show I watched, reignited my flair. So bear with me, as I present some controversial points to ponder.
Olympic Sports
I start off with that chat which sparked my interest in the first place. My friend, an Iranian, and I discussed how the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had deliberately fixed the Olympic calendar to include certain sports which are beneficial to a group of countries. Cricket, which is the world's second most popular sport (courtesy of the fanatic following in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) is not an Olympic sport when clearly the advent of T20 cricket, the wide viewership and the massive spotlight involved merits its inclusion. Kabaddi - a sport famous in many Asian countries (especially the likes of India, Pakistan, Iran, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka), or sports like Karate and Wushu have been constantly ignored. At their expense, the IOC had brought Golf - a rich man's sport - into the Olympics. Notwithstanding, sports like equestrian and sailing share the Olympic limelight - clearly, only a handful of the countries around the world can afford to conduct such expensive sports at a competitive level!
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| Katie Ledecky, Michael Phelps and Simone Biles of USA with the medals they won at Rio 2016 (Source: SI) |
At the same time, certain sports are more favourable towards certain ethnicities. For example, Swimming is a sport that gives and advantage to people who have a longer upper body and arms. That explains why Caucasians dominate Swimming. USA alone won 33 out of the 104 medals, including 16% gold medals. That's nearly 35% of the total gold medals USA won as a nation in Rio.
There is nothing wrong with that! Different sports requires different skillsets and not everyone can satisfy them. There is always a physical and genetic limitation for athletes. For example, athletes from Kenya and Ethiopia always tend to exceed the others in mid and long distance running (for those who might cite British legend Mo Farah, he was once Somalian citizen). On the flip side people with the genetic roots tracing back to West Africa have outright dominated short distance running. The last person outside such ancestry to win gold in the 100m women's was Yulia Nestsiarenka of Belarus in 2004, on the men's side it was Allan Wells of Great Britain in 1980. However, the problem is how many medal events are beefed up into events which are dominated by influential countries. Does Swimming really deserve 34 medal events when a sport like football, loved by billions, only has 2 medal events (women's and men's)? At one point, one wonders why there isn't a 75m event for Swimming! The same logic applies to sports like equestrian (consisting of 6 medal events!) which makes no sense to an overwhelming majority of the world.
It's my belief that the Olympics should recognise the talents of all cultures scattered across the world and celebrate the diversity of our plant's 7 billion plus people. Can this be done by pandering up to sports that several influential countries dominate in? There was sport a called Softball which many of you wouldn't have even heard of was part of the Olympics just to boost the overall medal tally of a few select countries! Olympics will never be truly successful unless every country has a reasonable chance to win a medal. Right now a few countries are running away with the show while a majority of the countries have little or no chance of winning a medal. It's time for the IOC to go back to the drawing board and expand the games to include more sports that represent the diversity of the world population.
Skewed Governance
Not only IOC is lopsided in how they "integrate" the world through sports. Cricket - despite its popularity is grossly dominate by it's "big three". Even before it was formalised by the International Cricket Council (ICC) India, Australia and England were meddling too much with the sport through the oozing amounts of money and influence they have at their disposal. It has come to a point where the say of the other smaller stakeholders matters very little. What is much worse is that cricket has anointed a privileged status to nine (technically ten if you count Zimbabwe) nations. This is fine as long as they allow the remainder of the world a fair shot at making it to the big leagues. As a result of their multi-tiered membership systems, countries like Afghanistan, Ireland, The Netherlands, Nepal and the UAE have been relegated to the fringe.
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| Disgraced! Former FIFA President Sepp Blatter had to resign amidst corruption allegations (Source: CBS) |
By now the world is akin to the ghastly corruption rampant at FIFA - the governing body for world football. Its long term President, Sepp Blatter of Switzerland was accused from left, right and centre with heaps of claims of corruption and malpractice. It wasn't just Sepp Blatter who was implicated in these corruption claims. Many officials have been accused and FIFA's decision to offer the 2022 World Cup hosting rights to cash-rich Qatar where temperatures in June and July rise to mid to high 40 degrees celsius has sparked much uproar. Eventually, Blatter resigned under pressure and one would've thought that is the end of that. Apparently not, the man FIFA appointed to replace him, fellow Swissman Gianni Infantino has also been implicated in the corruption scandals as per the leaked Panama papers! What's more concerning is that since its inception in 1906, FIFA has had all but one European Presidents (the only exception being legendary Brazilian Joao Havelange). When the ballot came to replace Blatter, FIFA chose yet another European by overlooking distinguished candidates forwarded by Bahrain and Jordan. This again gives rise to the question of the existence of an "inner circle" in sports governance which looks out for their own interests than the hope of expanding the sport globally.
Racial Quotas & Double Standards
Last month the South African government came up with a policy of establishing racial quotas in a sports team. While many civil rights activists seem to be giving it praise, I believe it is a racist step. A person should not be part of his or her national team purely on the grounds of him/her being coloured. That is just a stupid ideology. Under the new policy, an average of over 60% of the athletes on a South African national sports team across a season should be coloured and a minimum of 33% out of that quota has to be "black African". Are we heading back to the apartheid days again? How would Nelson Mandela have responded? Many of us are familiar with his role in healing South Africa and how he used Rugby as a vessel (i.e. Invictus).
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| The "controversial" team photo of the Springboks for the 2015 Rugby World Cup (Source: The Guardian) |
With the advent of this new policy, South Africa might not be able to field their best team on the field in cricket, rugby or hockey at any given time. If you're familiar with cricket, what that means is that you won't see the super talented AB de Villiers, Faf du Plessis, Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel, Quinton de Kock, Rilee Rossouw in the same team together. Players like Kyle Abbott, Wayne Parnell, Dwaine Pretorius might have to sit on the bench even if they merit their inclusion in the final XI, purely because they are white. The same rules apply for the Springboks (the rugby team). Perhaps the intentions of the authorities are well placed, but one wonders whether this policy would lead to creating a tension within dressing rooms which might eventually translate on to the field.
While encouraging diverse communities taking up new sports and excelling in them is imperative, one should not shy away from weeding out racism and derogatory behaviour from sports. For example, Australia cricket has been resorting to a simple formula for victory over the past so many decades - sledging and racism. Calling Indian star player Harbhajan Singh a monkey, calling the struggling Sri Lankans who toured Australia in the late 1980s "black c***s" the Aussies have taken sledging to a disgraceful level. Less than a week ago they kept on verbally attacking their South African counterparts after having been drubbed and put in their place with a 5-0 whitewash.
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| Mr Know-it-all, Ross Emerson, who failed to have even meagre club career as a cricketer having his golden moment in life. A tussle with true cricketing legends (Source: Cricketique) |
There's one stand out example that should not go unwritten. Over the past two decades Muttiah Muralitharan - definitely, the greatest bowler world cricket has ever seen - has been shunned using various arguments. By legendary Australia captain Steven Waugh's own admission Murali was the "Bradman of bowlers". Yet, Murali has been questioned on his bowling action time and time again baselessly when he has proven himself on multiple occasions (by below average 'umpires' manipulated by Australian authorities who pretended to know better than the ICC and body kinetics academics based out of top ranked universities). Some even bring out logics to belittle the 800 test scalps he has got. What is even more deplorable is how the same crowd romanticises Shane Warne - the fact he is a gifted bowler is as accurate as the fact of him being a convicted dope cheat - as the best! A known sledger who uses racial abuse on the pitch, Shane Warne has had a shady life off of it as well. Yet many are giving the children a bad example by pumping up his image. The soft-spoken Murali who is a highly decent charitable human being has been ignored in spite his unquestionable status as the greatest bowler ever born! Don't trust me? Check the statistics!
This February two talented Bangladeshi bowlers - Arafat Sunny and Taskin Ahmed were similarly banned for a suspect action which disallowed them from taking part in the World T20 World Cup - #BrownLivesMatter. The point I'm trying to underscore is that racism has wedged a deep schism in modern day sports, no matter how much the influential countries preaches to the choir. Everyone should collectively come together to denounce such shameful actions no matter which part of the world it stems from.
Sports Mercenaries
Another disturbing fact I noticed is how "sports mercenaries" are growing! What I mean by "sports mercenaries" is how athletes who are born, bred and trained in a certain country sells themselves for money to represent another country. Several countries in the Mid-East (or Near-West, depending on where your geometric bearings are), such as Qatar, Bahrain, Azerbaijan, Turkey are buying athletes for cash. This is a disease that needs to be halted before it gets out of hand. Otherwise, all the rich countries would manipulate sports by luring the star athletes of developing countries by throwing cash. The sports authorities need to take action against this - especially the IOC and FIFA!
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| Rio 2016 steeplechase Gold Medalist Ruth Jebet (BAH) - did she betray her native Kenya for money? (Source: IAAF) |
Should we be concerned?
Countries should strive to provide the best they could and build up athletes which best represent them on the world stage. And once there, the world should not discriminate based on one's race, nationality or background. The recent turn of events described in this article disturbs me and makes me wonder whether "true sportsmanship" is slipping out of our grasp even though it's the 21st century! I'm afraid to write that what's mentioned above may even be just the tip of the iceberg.
Sports is supposed to be a great leveller. It should unite people and bring the best out of people. Sports governing bodies have a responsibility to ensure this by setting policies, rules and an environment that is not lopsided. Sports fans have a responsibility to pressure the authorities to make this transition smooth and seamless.
