According to Avery Brundidge, the Olympics “embraces the highest moral laws. NO philosophy, no religion preaches loftier sentiments.”
Well, if the highest moral law is “he who has the gold, makes the rules”, then he’s right.
For all the hype, the Olympics is nothing more than a two-week long commercial with athletes. During the first few days of competition, I would estimate that there was about three minutes of competition to about three hours of meaningless chatter about scandals and politics and about twelve hours of commercials. Someone with more patience should sit down with a stop-watch and get the actual figures.
During an important curling match, the CBC actually cut away for commercials while rocks were being thrown in the late ends of an extremely close semi-final match between Britain and Canada. It’s almost as bad as ABC News Nightline. Could anything have made it more clear what the Olympics are really all about?
There will be some great competitions, no doubt, and men’s hockey is shaping up to be one of the best. On the larger ice surface, we might actually get to see some skating, passing, and stick-handling. Why did the NHL agree to this? Don’t they realize that viewers will be appalled when they are forced to watch the ridiculous thuggery of the NHL again after this treat? Maybe that’s why they announced there will be a crack-down on clutch-and-grab tactics after the Olympics.
As for figure skating and ice dancing, if everyone knows that the judging is decided on the basis of back-room politicking, why can’t anybody seem to do anything about it?
The reason why is simple: the International Olympic Committee is the personal fiefdom of Juan Antonio Samaranch, the former youth fascist, who runs the organization with an iron fist behind walls of secrecy. He appoints new members to the committee. He controls the purse strings. And he is accountable to no one.
This kind of structure should not be able to survive the modern era. Most large corporations have begun to realize that without clear lines of accountability, they cannot be competitive. Everyone is too busy covering their own rear end to serve the genuine interests of the company.
When Ross Rebagliati tested positive for marijuana at these Olympics, someone should have looked at the receipts for the Atlanta games. As Dan Morgenson pointed out in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, 9,000 cases of beer, 1,800 cases of wine, and 600 cases of liquor, were delivered to Hyatt Regency hotel for the benefit of the 106 members of the International Olympic Committee. Hypocrisy run amok!
All of the world’s national Olympic Committees should meet together this year and announce that a new structure must be created by a committee elected from the National Olympic bodies. The first task of this committee will be to create a code of conduct which all of the national bodies must subscribe to or suffer ineligibility. This code of conduct must stipulate that the committees are accountable to the athletes they serve and to the supporting community. This code should set a fixed ratio of “officials” to athletes to attend each sporting event. All officials must be legitimate representatives of their sports– not sycophants of some politician or general.
The second task will be to set up a new International Olympic Organization with a board that is democratically elected from among all the member national bodies. No nation will be allowed to nominate from their own country. At least 50% of the board members should be elected directly by the athletes.
The third task will be to impose stringent limits on the amount of Olympic dollars that are allocated for administration and promotion. Nobody knows what the exact numbers are, but nobody doubts that a huge proportion of Olympic spending is devoted to the comfort and pleasure of the same idiot officials and appointees who decided that Ross Rebagliati should lose his gold medal because of trace amounts of THC in his blood.
Finally, the baloney should be removed from the selection process for hosts for the Olympic games. Once again, everybody knows that the process is incredibly corrupt– officials are almost handed suitcases of cash by representatives of contending cities– but nobody seems to have the guts or the means to stop it.
We have seen the U.S. press become hysterically obsessed with the salacious but insignificant scandal of Bill Clinton’s undisciplined sexual urges. Millions of words and thousands of hours of television program have been devoted to this non-news story. Compared to the Monica Lewinsky story, the way the International Olympic Committee operates is a major scandal of outrageous proportions. The only way it will ever get on the front page, however, will be if Samaranch hires himself a lovely little intern…