05.08.2008 China. Members of Russia's contingent attend a flag-raising ceremony ahead of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. REUTERS/Joe Chan (CHINA)
Photo: Reuters
| Other Photos |
 |
|
 |
Non-sports Aggression
With the start of the Beijing Olympics, Russia will face another upsurge of nationalism. Kommersant special correspondent Mikhail Zygar believes that no one has any interest in the Olympics proper – political scandals accompanying them rate much higher.
The Olympics ceased to be just a sports celebration long ago. At least, the sports component is far from being the most important one. What do spectators do watching a football cup, for example? They watch the game, and then they engage in truly heated discussions of it. When the Games begin, the performance proper is in the background. A large army of casual sports fans start calculating the medals. The nation’s key business during the Olympics is following the table reflecting the amount of the gold, silver and bronze Russia, the USA and other teams win. No one cares about the majority of sports. Who’d watch archery (though as many as 8 medal sets are at stake there)? Or rowing (11)? Taekwondo (8)? Riding (6)? Everyone’s looking forward to a news block, where you’ll see the cherished table: hasn’t our team won another golden medal?
The Olympics have turned in an internationally agreed means of finding out who is the coolest. Each country has its own way of demonstrating its superiority. The USA measures the teams’ success in the number of golden medals won (the same stats are published by the International Olympic Committee). Russia finds another scheme more flattering: points counting (3 points for the gold, 2 – for the silver, and 1 – for the bronze). With this formula, Russia’s team has every chance to rank higher. For example, it would have occupied the second place at the Athens Olympics, rather than the third one. Australians devised their unique scheme: they calculate the number of the medals won per head. With this index taken into account, the Bahamas ranked first after the Athens Games, whereas Australia was the second, Russia – the 28th, and the USA – the 39th.
In any other sports competitions, it’s athletes or teams that compete, and the Olympics are a tournament of state machines. It means that no other contest fosters the same upsurge of nationalism. It’s evident now that the scandalous Salt Lake City Games in 2002 will go down in the history of international politics as a breaking point in the relations between Russia and the USA. Before the Olympics public opinion polls suggested that 40% of Russian regarded the USA a friendly state, and 44% - the nation’s foe. Then the Olympics followed, with awarding Canada’s pair Jamie Sale and David Pelletier another gold in figure skating, the disqualifying of skiers Lazutina and Danilova, and figure skater Irina Slutskaya’s second place, which was regarded unfair. A month later polls showed that 70% of Russians saw the USA an unfriendly state, whereas only 17% disagreed with them.
Since that time nationalism has accompanied the Olympics. Sports commentators stoke the tensions as well. Usually, coaches or sports activists are invited to anchor Olympic tournaments. Spectators can’t make out much of sports cobwebs, as a rule. And commentators use all their ardor to accuse the judges of being biased, and the organizers of plotting. Indeed, why should they point to the mistakes of their fellow team members? After Irina Slutskaya’s second place in Salt Lake commentators would reiterate that the Russian was treated unfairly, without noticing that she didn’t have a single cascade of triple jumps, whereas Sarah Hughes, the winner, had two of them.
The situation is typical for other states too. The scandal with awarding Jamie Sale and David Pelletier the second gold started with the broadcasting of the NBC channel. Canadian figure skater Sandra Bezic, who anchored the final, was in hysterics on air – as Yelena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze received their medals, she cried that her compatriots were treated unfairly.
Nevertheless, in Russia and the West, the reasons for transforming the Olympics into war are diverse. It’s actually television that adds fuel to the fire. American journalists, for example, were truly impressed with the figure skating scandal of 2002, just like their Russian colleagues. But they made a simple conclusion: NBC deliberately exaggerated the case to increase the ratings of the Olympics. TV broadcasters are willing to add a political aspect to the Games, because war is watched with more interest than peace. In Russia it was only an outbreak of the people’s ire that was spontaneous. Satirist Mikhail Zadornov put a cross on his American visa before TV cameras because it was a political order, rather than the law of TV shows.
Something has changed since those times. Now it seems the athletes are sent to war, and the footages of the recent Olympics resemble war chronicle. Now any sports competitions are the demonstration of Russia’s getting stronger. And the Olympics are the crucial mortal combat.
There’s only one encouraging thing: the times of a true cold war have gone for good, and the fighters who haven’t accomplished the task of the party or the government are no longer punished. No one will disband a football team because of their losing to ideological opponents, as was the case in 1952. The winners will continue their sports careers. And those who got defeated – the victims of the U.S. plot – will be able to start their political ones joining the next State Duma MPs.
Mikhail Zygar
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 04, 2008
|
|
|
