|
Politics
The Soviet military invasion of Hungary and the English, French and Israeli Suez intervention against Egypt on the eve of the 1956 Melbourne Olympics  was a serious threat of cancellation, whereas it was the first time that certain states abstained from the Games. Under these circumstances, the then president of the IOC Avery Brundage, in an effort to change the climate, said that the Olympic Games should not be used for political purposes and that they constituted rivalry among persons, not among nations. However, rivalry among nations in the context of the Olympics was evident already from the first organizations and especially after the Games of 1908. What is more, the "rivalry among nations" was accompanied for almost four decades by the "rivalry of political systems", namely the rivalry between the Soviet Union and the USA. An extreme expression of these rivalries was the boycotts, namely the abstention from the Olympic Games.
Rivalries among nations and the practices through which they were expressed in the Olympics (e.g. boycotts, lists of medals) were not the only cases in which the Games were used for political purposes. Often the athletes, especially those in the popular track and field events, used their victory in order to promote social-political issues and arouse the public opinion. The most characteristic incident occurred during the medal presentation to the winners of the 200m in the Olympic Games of 1968 where John Carlos and Tommie Smith protested against the policy of racial segregation that persisted in their country.
|
