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THEOLYMPIC
G
ES-
Mirror of Mankind
by
Gene H. Hogberg
As world's finest athletes gather for the Twenty-third Olympiad, politics and
international rivalry again threaten to overshadow the colorful spectacle.
' 'EVERY
four years the
world watches the su-
preme effort of sports–
men striving for their Olym–
pic triumph."
So writes Juan Antonio Sama–
r anch, president of the Interna–
tional Olympic Committee
(IOC), in the foreword to the
book
The Olympic Games, 1984.
"Healthy competition and fel–
lowship," continued the IOC's
chief executive, "are needed more
\han ever today in st rengthening
the desire for peace and lessening
the etfect of poli tical conflict."
Olympic ideals, however, often
contrast with the grim reality of the
world. Again, in 1984, as in pre–
vious Olympiads, the Olympic ideal
and its motto
Citius, A/tius, For–
tius-Swifter, Higher, Stronger–
are marred by the powerful forces
of national ism.
On May 8 United States Olym–
pic officials were stunned at the
announcement that Soviet athletes
wou ld not participate in the Games
of the Twenty-third Olympiad. The
official TASS agency said Soviet
athletes could not be safeguarded
against expected political demon–
strations.
" Capltalist" Olympics
This year's S ummer Olympiad is in
Los Angeles, California, also the
site of the only other Summer
Games held in the United States
July / August 1984
(in 1932). About l 0,000 athletes
and 2,000 coaches from 150 nations
had originally been expected to
attend.
The Los Angeles Games have
been popularly referred to as the
"Capitalist Olympics," partly out
of contrast to the 1980 Games in
Moscow, the first summer event
ever in the Communist world, but
mostly because of the number of
corporate patrons who have paid
sizable sums to be classified as "of–
ficial sponsors" of the events.
Officials of the Los Angeles
Olympic Organizing Committee
contend that there are sound eco–
nomic reasons for organizing the
Games in this manner. Because of
the corporate sponsorship, together
with television rights- sold for an
incredible US$225 million- the
LAOOC expects that the expenses
of staging the Games will be fully
covered. (The Soviet pullout, howev–
er, jeopardizes television contracts.)
Unlike in Montreal, Canada, site
of the 1976 Games, where escalating
costs saddled the citizens with a
huge financia] burden afterward, the
residents of Los Angeles and South–
ern California are not expected to be
impacted with increased taxes.
Another key to limiting the costs
• of the 1984 Olympics is the policy
of the LAOOC to use existing
facilities as much as possible.
Except for a swimming pool and a
velodrome (a stadium for bicycle
racing), no majar structures have
been constructed. Tnstead of a new
" Olympic Village," existing uni–
versity dormitories will house the
athletic teams.
The television coverage will be
an Olympian task in itself. No
expense is being spared in develop–
ing a new r ange of specially
designed cameras on vehicles. As
one TV critic told
The Wall Street
Journa/:
"The Los Angeles games
will be the most leviathan deploy–
ment of hardware, rolling a nd air–
borne stock, engineering, produc–
tion, on-air and managerial man–
power for any self- contained event
short of a shooting war in the 40-
year history of television."
An ABC official added, with
only slight exaggeration: "There' ll
be so many helicopters in the sky
during the Olympics, Los Angeles
will be like Vietnam."
Polltlcal Problema
The organizers of the Los Angeles
Games have hi t on what they
expect wi ll be a winning formula to
finance the Olympics. But no one
has yet come up with the formula
to defuse the divisive forces of
nationalism and the desi re to win at
all costs that together have hung
like a black cloud over the past sev–
eral Olympiads.
The IOC, the chief ruling body
of the Games, has continuously
found itself in the middle of pol iti–
cal disputes and intrusions, espe–
ciaJly since the Winter and Sum–
mer Games in Germany in 1936.
At that time the IOC ran head-
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