The Olympics and the Dream of Peace

With a history of more than 100 years, Olympic athletics with its "non-political sporting spirit" has brought people and nations closer together.

As soon as the first Olympic Games were held in Athens in 1896, trouble ensued when Turkey refused to participate due to geopolitical disputes with host Greece. The 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics was a typical case of sport being used as a propaganda tool.

With Hitler's anti-Semitic policy, many countries asked the IOC to withdraw Germany's hosting rights, but in the end the Games were still held in Berlin. The United States and the vast majority of European nations participated, but that year's Olympics took place in an atmosphere of German nationalism, heavy on racism.

This was only reduced when Jesse Owens, a young black American athlete won four gold medals, including victory over German Lutz Long in the long jump.

After the Berlin Olympics, World War II broke out interrupting the Olympic Games for 12 years. By 1948, the games were held again in London; this time the IOC and host Great Britain did not invite Germany to participate and the Soviet Union was also absent.

The 1956 Melbourne Olympics were also the Games with a record number of boycotts for political reasons. China was absent because the IOC and the host nation allowed Taiwanese athletes to participate. The Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland also made their own gestures in protest against Soviet intervention in Hungary.

After the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, the subsequent Summer Olympic Games in Rome, Italy (1960), Tokyo, Japan (1964) and Mexico (1968) were relatively peaceful although matches between East-West representatives or between rival nations remained fraught with tension.

At the 1972 Munich Olympics, violence erupted again and this time caused by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On the morning of 5 September 1972, a group of Palestinian militants from the Black September movement broke into the Olympic village and took nine Israeli athletes hostage in order to demand the release of 200 Palestinian prisoners.

The Olympic Games of Montreal 1976 (Canada), Moscow 1980 (Soviet Union), Los Angeles 1984 (United States) saw the return and widespread use of boycotts. Refusal to participate in the Olympics was used by countries as a Cold War weapon.

The Montreal Summer Olympics were boycotted by 22 African countries in protest against the presence of New Zealand, whose rugby team had travelled to South Africa under Apartheid.

Four years later, at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, the United States and other Western countries such as West Germany, Canada, Japan and South Korea boycotted to protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan a year earlier.

Following the relatively smooth Olympic Games of the late 1990s and early 2000s, a ban on some countries participating in the Olympics due to political factors has been reinstated for 2024. Due to the conflict in Ukraine, national sports teams from Russia and Belarus will not be able to compete at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

The athletes of these two countries will only be allowed to compete as individual neutrals with a very small number through screening, Russia has 15 athletes and Belarus 11.

Chain together.

Although a lot of political disagreements have limited the opportunity for athletes to compete in top sports, there are still Olympic Games that provide an opportunity for countries to come closer together. At the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics, North Korea refused to participate after Pyongyang offered to co-host with South Korea but was not accepted by the IOC.

However, at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Athens 2004 and 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City (USA), Turin 2006 (Italy), North Korea and South Korea marched together under a white flag depicting the Korean Peninsula in blue, wearing identical uniforms on the opening day.

Aside from the unfortunate stories and incidents, the Olympics have repeatedly played a unifying role in efforts to bring peace the world.

Most recently, the 2020 Tokyo Olympics entered the history of the modern Olympic movement when host country Japan showed its utmost determination and effort to ensure a smooth running of the event amidst the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping across the world.

The continuation of the martial spirit stems from ancient Olympic competitions and as Chapter 5 of the Olympic Charter states: "No political, religious or ethnic action shall be permitted at the Games". It is hoped that the Olympic flame will not only illuminate the place where athletes compete but also symbolize the unity and peaceful love of all mankind.