Debate, Debate | It is impossible to separate the Olympics and politics

Posted On: February 9, 2022

Leader This is a leader. The leader expresses the newspaper’s attitude.

At the same time as photos from the Olympics in Beijing reach home in the many lounges around the world, the mayor of Lillehammer is receiving criticism for having received representatives from the Chinese embassy this weekend to celebrate the Olympic Games in Beijing.

The discussion is about whether a municipality, or as far as a country, should boycott a regime Norway does not support.

Several countries such as the USA, Canada, Great Britain and Denmark do not send any official representatives to the Olympics in Beijing. Norway has not wanted to take part in the diplomatic boycott, and is sending ministers to China. The sports president says sports and politics should not be mixed.

The Olympic Games will basically be about sports and be a fraternization across borders. The glorification of the Olympics does the International Olympic Committee (IOC) everything it can to keep it alive. It is impossible to separate top sports and politics. The Olympics are big politics.

Quinine is not the first country to use the Olympics to launder a sport worthy of criticism. Vladimir Putin turned the 2014 Olympics in Sochi into a show of strength.

It is a long way from the Olympics in Sochi or Beijing to the Lillehammer Olympics in 1994. Although the idea of fraternization is good, it is timely to ask whether the distance is too great to be able to influence.

Dialogue is an important tool for creating peace and counteracting conflict. Accurate as the French baron Pierre De Coubertin middle he founded the current Olympics in 1894. 130 years later, however, the Olympics appear as a tool for authoritarian states to cover up human rights violations.

Even though Lillehammer is only a small piece in the big game of power, the municipality has a responsibility. Both as a former Olympic city, a possible future applicant and host city for the World Expression Forum.

The mayor has followed the government’s line and received around 100 delegations from China. Inviting or traveling to Beijing involves a responsibility. It is the responsibility to acknowledge that top sports and politics cannot be separated from each other.