Charles Pierre de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin, better known as Pierre de Coubertin, graduated with a degree in law and public affairs from the Paris Institute of Political Studies. He was interested in education and focused particularly on physical education. De Coubertin spent years studying the English school system with its growing emphasis on the role of athletics in education.
The short story is that De Coubertin went on to develop the modern Olympic movement as he idealized the Olympic Games as the ultimate ancient athletic competition. With financing by the wealthy Greek Zappas brothers and the Greek government, the first Olympic Games under the International Olympic Committee (also founded by De Coubertin) was held in Athens in 1896. The Games brought together 14 nations and 241 athletes who competed in 43 events.
“The Games” in ancient times were supposedly for amateur athletes. But then as now, the Greek city-states wanted to win and paid for “amateur” training. De Coubertin argued that the Olympic movement should develop its definition of “amateurism” gradually, bringing nations together “to promote understanding across cultures, thereby lessening the dangers of war” was more important.
As to the amateur nature of the Olympics, the current final Tokyo Olympics torchbearer is Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka, the highest-paid female athlete in the world, earning approximately $40 million between June 2019 and June 2020.
By contrast, American athlete Jim Thorpe was stripped of his 1912 Summer Olympics gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon after it was learned that he had played professional baseball three years earlier. Times change.
That the Olympics—ancient and modern—were to promote peace is a myth. The Greek city-states continued their wars during the games. And World War II was not cancelled for the Olympics; the Games were cancelled.
Politics has always been a part of the Olympics. In 1908, the Grand Duchy of Finland competed separately from the Russian Empire but was not allowed to display the Finnish flag. Germany and Japan were suspended from the 1948 Olympics. The US boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. The USSR boycotted the 1984 games in Los Angeles.
The Palestinian terrorist group Black September, which had ties to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah organization, killed 11 athletes, coaches, and judges at the 1972 Munich games.
Now we come to the 2020—delayed to 2021—Tokyo Olympics, the “Most expensive, greatest gender parity with the most sports” in history. While the “Billionaire Space Cadets”—Bezos, Branson, and Musk—are demonized for spending their own money, why don’t we hear that the $30 billion the Japanese government is spending on the Olympics could be used to feed the poor? Or that NBC has sold $1.25 billion in ads for Tokyo Olympics, or the $3 billion that 60 Japanese corporate sponsors are paying?
The biggest threat to the future of the Olympics is that very few cities want to host them. The games are financial losers. Montreal took about 30 years to pay off debt incurred in 1976. The original budget for the Athens 2004 games was $1.6 billion. Final cost: $16 billion. Brazil lost $2 billion in 2016. With the exception of Barcelona in 1992, no modern Games has raised a host city’s rate of economic growth, tourist income, or productivity.
Bidding for the 2024 Summer Olympics became a two-city race between Paris and Los Angeles, so the IOC simultaneously awarded both the 2024 Games to Paris and the 2028 Games to Los Angeles.
Is it time for the Olympics to be restrained and toned down?