Let's Have an Honest Talk about the Olympics

The 2022 Winter Olympics were one of the strangest sporting events I've ever read about, and I say read about because, to be frank, I didn't watch a single minute of the winter games. Not out of apathy, simply out of lack of interest. This has been something that has been happening with the Olympics over the years: people have really become disinterested in the Olympics concept as a whole. The summer games offer way more relatable sports, but they've also grown to include such strange sports that it's almost like anything that is remotely considered a sport or physical activity can be included. The winter games have taken serious dips in popularity with sports like the men's ice hockey not having access to top professional talent, reverting to amateur and it's all wrapped together with Russia's Olympic athlete ban in light of their state-sponsored doping scandal. Not to mention, the venues for the last winter games have been in Asian countries where time differences are so vast, you are rarely watching events live unless you want to wake up at 4am to watch bobsledding or downhill skiing, what have you. Not only has the IOC been cast in a pretty tragic light due to some of their decisions in choosing host cities, but they have also done little to nothing to stop Russia from sending athletes and nothing to curve the doping crisis the Russian athletes have undergone. These Beijing Games were the bottom of the iceberg; this is what truly killed the IOC's remaining credibility and makes me think there needs to be a vast revision on international sporting events in general. So, let's really dive deep into how the 2022 Beijing Games were just the tipping point of the decline of the Olympic games.

Let's focus on the Beijing Games first. Now, we all saw the image of the downhill skill course set up next to a nuclear reactor steam stack. This is not only the most dystopian place to hold a sporting event, it is legitimately dangerous due to potential radiation exposure. This is a massive failure on the Chinese government for not taking location into account, and even more hilarious is the fact the IOC saw the ski course and basically ok'd it from the get-go. Then there was the whole problem of COVID and China's incredibly strict quarantine law, where athletes would have to spend up to five weeks in quarantine, which put a cloud of fear over everyone involved with the Games. The NHL backed out of going to the Olympics, even though there was little likelihood of them going even before COVID hit the world. The ski and snowboarding courses were made up of fake snow, you could see smog over the city all the time, and NBC was really trying hard to say nice things about the Games, but what could you say? Now we come to the real controversy: Kamila Valieva, the 15-year old Russian figure skating prodigy who was popped for taking a banned substance. It not only shrouded what was already looking like a failed spectacle in Beijing in an even more terrible light, it just continued to reinforce the narrative about the IOC has been bending itself to the will of bigger nations. If you thought there was corruption in the Olympic committee, you'd be right to think so. For whatever reasons, these games have become more about geopolitical dominance rather than sporting merit. They're becoming tainted.

Now, let's talk about Kamila Valieva and how she has basically become the poster child of everything that's gone wrong with the Olympics lately. Valieva had a lot of hype built up around her as the next great Russian figure skater, she was known for being a specialist in the free skate portion of the figure skating competitions, but she got tangled up in the same web all the Russian athletes did at the Sochi games: doping. The Russian athletes were not allowed to represent the Russian nation, the flag was not to be raised during medal ceremonies, the national anthem would not be played. The "Russian Olympic Committee" was a clever guise to get around the sanctions from the IOC, but they weren't hard enough on the Russian government for sponsoring and allowing this doping to continue. Now they grabbed hold of a 15-year old starlet who probably lacked the mental capacity to make decisions for herself and was heavily influenced by a culture of doping and cheating. It might be poetic justice that Valieva fell multiple times in the free skate and missed out on a medal. Then you see her emotions and you remember she was thrust into something she had no say in, and on top of that was criticized by her coach who the investigators believe is the primary suspect in giving Valieva the substances. This is an ugly and tainted Olympics. We still don't know who is going to win the medals for the free skate because the Valieva investigation is not concluded, but the damage is done. The IOC needs to sack up and outright ban Russia from the Olympics. Taking away the Russian flag and anthem at medal ceremonies doesn't rattle anyone. 

So you have horrible venue choices, allowing doping to continue by a nation and potentially ruin the career of a teenager, so how has that affected interest and viewership? Well, that's another problem in itself. I remember all NFL season NBC would be advertising what a marvelous spectacle it would be having the Super Bowl the same time as the Winter Olympics...as if you could even compare the two. 34 million people tuned in for Super Bowl 56, only 11.4 million watched the Winter Olympics. This wasn't just a one-off because of China and the American public's denouncement of their human rights violation; look at the Tokyo Games last summer and it was declining in viewership too. 15.5 million viewers in America, and it was coupled with the fact fans were banned days before the Games started. The Olympics have become outdated because the IOC has been picking countries and venues that either don't have the infrastructure for it or have no issues masking the damage building Olympic complexes can have on cities financially; they become incredibly moot if there's no use for them after the games. Rio 2016 was an example where the Brazilian city simply couldn't support the toil from hosting a more-extensive summer sporting event despite a very successful FIFA World Cup in 2014. However, Brazil being a nation with a footballing culture, hundreds of football stadia, and regulations, hosting the World Cup was an easier affair. Athens 2004 basically bankrupted Greece because, for some reason, baseball and softball stadiums were needed and since then these structures have been left abandoned and rotting away. The Olympic committee has failed to read the room time and time again, and they have often turned a blind eye to serious ethical and moral issues as they too partake in sportswashing, even if they do it thinking there is good intent. 

International sports themselves are a very peculiar affair because lately, it seems like there has been a push for more events. A lot of this has been in response to the increasingly-growing popularity of professional sports and how international events have been pushed into a lower priority for players and fans alike. Some governing bodies have tried to quell the influence professional leagues have on international sports by trying to add more events to the calendar. Many sports already have their own international events i.e. FIFA World Cup, FIBA World Cup for basketball, World Cup of Hockey, IIHF World Juniors Championship, FIS Skiing events, and more. With all of these sporting events basically doing the same work of the Olympics with fewer requirements to build lodging and facilities for athletes, I for one don't see the need for the Olympics every 4 years. They have become outdated, they have become expensive, and moreover, they have been morally corrupted. Not to say FIFA is all that ethical, and I'm sure FIBA and the IIHF have their own issues, but it seems like we focus more on the IOC because the amount of time, money, and labor that goes into the Olympics every four years is not returning the dividends. Less viewership, less money. More scandals, more people walk away time and time again.