The Distraction Olympics
The Distraction Olympics
If you're outraged about sports then maybe you won't be outraged about the other stuff going on...
If you’ve been keeping an eye on the Paris 2024 Olympics, then your eyebrows may have been raised - like mine and everyone else it seems.
First there was the opening ceremony, which seemed to me and to a lot of other people to mock Christianity (I’m not Christian btw), and was populated with overweight drag queens. I have nothing against obese people or trans people, but what do they have to do with the Olympics? During the opening ceremony there was even a man in drag with a testicle hanging out of his costume that was broadcast on live TV.
Surely we can agree that the olympics is the one last place that can be reserved for people in peak physical condition? Even if we’ve given up Victorias Secret runway shows for plus sized models, and overweight people are basically accepted everywhere, the olympics should be elitist - that’s the point!
The founding father of the Olympic Games - Pierre do Coubertin wrote that “the games should be free from political, ideological, religious and national interference”, and the Olympic charter rule 50.2 states quite clearly:
“No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.”
It seems to me that pushing a “pride” agenda violates the olympic charter. Again, nothing wrong with “pride”, but what does it have to do with sport? Sexuality shouldn’t matter on the field, so why does it need to be pointed out? The sexuality of olympians should matter so little that it’s invisible - not flaunted.
If you weren’t disappointed with the opening ceremony, just think back to Beijing 2008 with the 2,008 perfectly synchronised drummers to remember what it USED to be like.
Anyway, the disappointing opening ceremony was just a palette cleanser.
Other eyebrow raising moments at the Olympics include:
Paris has an ongoing safety issue. It’s so bad that there is now a name for it “Paris disillusionment syndrome”. An Australian tourist was gang raped by 5 men, and this is not the only incident at the games. In addition there was arson on the subway lines that prevented 800,000 people from travelling, and a full power blackout on one of the first nights of the games.
A female boxer was just about beaten to death in 46 seconds by a biologically male or at minimum inter-sex boxer who was allowed to compete as female. This is basically just sanctioned domestic violence, and anyone with a brain can see should never have been allowed to happen.
Actually there are so many controversies surrounding the Paris Olympics, that there is a giant wikipedia entry on it, which runs to many many pages, and has over 300 external linked references.
My intention with this article wasn’t to list all the Olympic controversies, but rather to make a wider point, which is that if you’re outraged by all the things going on at the Olympic Games, then you probably don’t have time to be outraged by all the other stuff going on, namely:
The Gaza and Ukraine wars
The brewing US and Global sovereign debt crisis
Spiralling Inflation
The 100 giant wild fires in the USA right now, caused by climate change
Now, I won't any claim as to who might benefit from the Olympic Games being controversial and having us all talk about them rather than real issues, but the wider point that I want to make is that sport has been used to distract and placate populations for literally thousands of years.
In Roman times, The Roman gladiatorial games played a significant role in maintaining the stability of the Roman Empire, thereby delaying its premature fall. The games served as a means of social control, providing a powerful distraction for the masses from political and economic issues. By organizing grand spectacles in the Colosseum, the Roman authorities could placate the population, reducing the likelihood of civil unrest and rebellion. Additionally, the games were an important tool for promoting the emperor's image and reinforcing social hierarchies, as they often highlighted the emperor's generosity and power.
So…. if the current Olympic Games have a lot of controversial things going on that many of us feel annoyed about, we might want to ask ourselves not just why are these things being allowed to happen, but are they happening deliberately, and if so, what it is that we might perhaps be being distracted from?
At the end of the day it doesn’t actually matter whether the Algerian boxer who beat the other female boxer is biologically male, female, intersex or just has too much testosterone - what matters is that we’re all talking about it - me included - and we are being distracted from having deeper conversations about potentially more important things.
Something that I think is sad and important - more important than whether a female boxer has a penis - is the decline of Paris from being one of the world’s greatest cities to a shadow of its former self, and the erosion of western values and civilisation. If you haven’t Paris visited before or recently, you’ll be shocked if you go back - I certainly was the last time I was there in 2019.