Olympism in the Post-Covid19 World: a Letter to the IOC
In April 2020, following the rescheduling of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, IOC President Thomas Bach published a heartfelt letter about the many challenges posed by the global covid-19 crisis, to initiate a comprehensive debate on where Olympism (the philosophy that grounds the Olympic Movement) should go from here. The Olympic Studies Centre then proceeded to actively invite scholars to provide their insights, by sending an email to the IOC with their input and comments. As a student in the International Olympic Academy master’s program, this is what I had to say.
“Dear friends in Olympic Studies,
Following the message shared by Thomas Bach addressing the Olympic Community and the invitation sent by the Center of Olympic Studies for observers and academics in the field of Olympic Studies to share their perspectives and comments regarding Olympism in the world post-Covid19, I would like to put forward my small contribution to the conversation by sharing some of the reflections that arose during my first semester as a student in the Master’s Program at the International Olympic Academy last year.
Being in Ancient Olympia is an opportunity to be grounded on Olympism, not just immersed in it. As current circumstances are daunting for the future of the Olympic Movement, it seems to me that no future is possible without a reflection about the purpose of the movement, what it is at its core, and why it matters — and will still matter in a world profoundly changed by this pandemic.
I am a historian, and so I know that throughout History pandemics have worked like accelerators of different futures, crushing some of the expectations of a generation while clearing the path for various social transformations — some of them long due. Many of the challenges now faced by the Olympic Movement are not new: rather, they were exponentialized, and are now being publicly dissected as this crisis hits humanity in the peak of its hyperconnectivity. My comments, then, are not directed to the ad hoc difficulties arising from the postponement of Tokyo 2020, which, I am sure, are being thoroughly and extensively explored by many capable minds within the Olympic System. I want to talk about what lies beneath the many layers of branding and corporate jargon in which Olympism is now plastered.
The most remarkable thing about being physically present in the ancient Olympic stadium in Olympia is to realize how dissimilar it is to the images in our collective unconscious of what a sports venue looks like: it is raw, and stripped of any symbols and structures that nowadays are key to creating a sports atmosphere. Perhaps its charm is precisely this nakedness: this idea that the human skills and abilities demonstrated there are enough by themselves, for the meaning they carry, and the thrill they provoke. I have worked in the Rio 2016 Organizing Committee, and so I appreciate the impact that beautifully crafted structures have for the spectacle of the Games; I also remember, however, the chill I felt running up my spine when I walked the dirt plot that would one day become the Deodoro Stadium. My question here is: do we need so much entertainment apparatus to make the Games actually Olympic? In a world that will probably still be plagued by scarcity due to the global economic crisis caused by covid-19, can we not replace the extravagance of the Games with a focus on emulating humanity’s power to overcome?
Undoubtedly, Baron Pierre de Coubertin was a genius at encapsulating the zeitgeist of his time to start a movement that would outlive him while making him immortal. But it might be time for us to look back to the raw material on which Coubertin based his creation to see if we are still being true to the stem cells of Olympism. The Modern Olympic Games were established a little over a century ago, but the historic duration of the 20th century is not the same as that of the centuries before it. The Olympic movement as we know it has seen the rise and fall of humanity’s best and worst, and it is fair to say the world has gotten a lot bigger since then. It is astonishing that the Olympic movement has managed to survive what even intricate and solid political regimes could not withstand, that it has outlived many occasions deemed “the end of the world as we know it”. This is not to say that we can take for granted that the Olympic movement will be unscathed as it weathers this storm. It is a wake up call for us to look into its most intrinsic worth to make sure it is preserved, and guiding the many inevitable upcoming changes. The Olympic movement was able to survive everything because it is inherently human, and vulnerable as such. And such daring times call for our vulnerabilities to be shared, not hidden or glossed over.
The covid-19 crisis has welcomed the rise and acknowledgement of the virtue of new leadership profiles: those based on empathy, and that embrace one’s humanity. Not by chance, leaders with such profiles are being heralded as exceptionally successful in their approach to the covid-19 crisis, and as role models not only for their success, but for the values underlying their decision-making processes. The IOC, as the leader of the Olympic Movement, has performed different leadership styles throughout history, more or less successfully at different circumstances. As the Olympic Games grew bigger and challenges related to corruption became more prominent, though, we saw the Olympic enterprise become a juggernaut. The efforts to depersonalize the Olympic Games, however legitimate and undoubtedly necessary, ended up erecting a wall between the IOC and many of the constituents of the Olympic movement. It is good that issues are not addressed as personal issues; they have to remain, however, as human issues at their core. In order to face the challenges lying ahead, it is important for the IOC to adopt and adapt to a leadership style that is respectful towards and embracing of the grim reality of many of its constituents. The moment now does not call for strength, for assertiveness, when so many difficult questions are still up in the air. The moment calls for humility and empathy, and understanding that some are suffering a lot more than others, and if the idea is to show that we are in this together, as a global community, we must share more than our passion for Olympism; the IOC must be ready to share its vulnerabilities as well, and truly acknowledge that the hardships some of us are facing will take time to be overcome. By powering through, by reinforcing positivity at all costs, the Olympic movement may end up becoming alienating for those who are, understandably, unable to simply pick themselves up from their bootstraps.
There is a key differentiation that must be made to ensure the right tone is applied when dealing with a global, diverse Olympic community: optimism and hope are two very distinct things. As Erich Fromm would say, “optimism is an alienated form of faith, but pessimism an alienated form of despair”. What the Olympic world has always craved, and needs now more than ever, is not a message of optimism. What has kept the modern Olympic movement relevant throughout the many bumps and challenges in its century-long history is not its ability to foster optimism, but its power to inspire hope. Hope without critical thinking, though, is naïveté — and it can be alienating to those who are in such desperation that hopelessness feels inevitable. When I say it is necessary to humanize the Olympic Movement, I mean it is necessary to give a human face not just to the hardships of the present, but to the community we are addressing. Right now, this community looks to Olympism not just for inspiration: it needs refuge, and Olympic values should be able to provide it. Even star athletes fall, even the most accomplished Olympic victors are humans with bad days, insecurities, fears. Doesn’t the Olympic movement embrace them, and value them, also when they are at their lowest?
As someone who has been profoundly touched and changed by Olympic education, and by the experience I had at the International Olympic Academy, I would like to close this letter by saying that I believe the world owes much of its wonders to Olympism. What Olympism owes, in return, is the assurance that it will always be a safeguard of human hope: that which is vulnerable, that which flickers, and that which understands when the weight of the world feels unbearable for some. More than anything, the covid-19 crisis served as a severe reminder of our own humanity and vulnerability; that the artifices on which we rely to differentiate ourselves and give us the illusion of control amount to nothing when facing such a threat. It reminded us of our interconnectedness, so beautifully professed by Martin Luther King Jr. It demonstrated how, as John Muir said, “when we try to pick something apart, we find it hitched onto everything else in the universe”. It seems the biggest challenge to be tackled in the future will not be one we had previously foreseen: it will be the cynicism that may arise from a global community that will have seen its structures and leaders fail them, for the most part, and whose certainties will have been unsettled to a point of despair, at times. The future of Olympism must be built with the awareness that the message the future needs is, perhaps, less about excellence, and more about hope. Less about competition, and more about cooperation. Less about trying to be the best, and more about bringing others up with you. Less about entertainment, and more about the stories it brings to life. The Olympic Movement should not be focused on best adapting to the circumstances foreseen for the world post-covid-19; it is about creating a better world through sport, after all.
Thank you very much for opening up this space for dialogue, and I hope there will be plenty of opportunities in the future for us Olympic scholars and enthusiasts to meet, in person, and celebrate the assets of humanity that cannot be virtually emulated.
With warm regards from Brazil,
Marjorie Enya
International Olympic Academy — Master’s Programme, Class of 2019/2020ne”
