The Paris Olympics could also be the Protest Olympics
Summary
Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, along with controversy over Chinese swimmers, hang over the Games. But athlete protests on the field or on the podium are strictly prohibited.
Every time an athlete steps onto the podium at the Paris Olympics this month, officials will be watching even more closely than usual. What they’ll be looking for is any sign of political messaging at what could become the most fraught Summer Games in a generation.
The Olympics officially kick off on July 26 amid several crises inside and outside the world of sports. And athletes haven’t been shy about expressing their views on topics ranging from wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, to the inclusion of Olympians from Russia and the involvement of Chinese swimmers in an alleged doping scandal.
But once Paris 2024 begins, those athletes will be told to keep their opinions quiet.
International Olympic Committee rules forbid athletes from protesting on the field of play or on the medal stand. That creates a dilemma for the athletes who see the Games as the biggest possible platform to raise awareness of issues close to their hearts.
Travis Tygart, CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, has been feuding with the World Anti-Doping Agency over what he sees as its mishandling of a number of doping positives among Chinese swimmers, some of whom will be competing in Paris. Tygart said American athletes are frustrated but feel pressure from sports governing bodies and their sponsors to “shut up and go perform and compete."
At the U.S. Olympic swimming trials in Indianapolis, Tygart said, several athletes who made the team asked him, “‘What should we do?’"
“They are totally conflicted," he added. “They want to be good sports, they want to be good role models."
Tygart declined to say what he told the swimmers, but said he talked through how to sound the alarm about what they see as a deeply unfair situation.
The American swimming community still remembers the headlines branding 1976 U.S. Olympian Shirley Babashoff as “Surly Shirley" for implying that the East German women she was competing against were using performance-enhancing drugs. History would later show that many of those athletes were, in fact, doping.
Under IOC rules, Olympic athletes are allowed to express themselves on social media, in interviews or in the host city outside of Olympic venues or the athletes’ village. On the field of play or medal stand, however, “No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted," according to the Olympic Charter’s Rule 50.
That rule grew out of the protest at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. There, U.S. sprinters John Carlos and Tommie Smith each thrust a black-gloved fist in the air while on the medal stand to advocate for the civil rights of Black people at home and abroad. They were expelled from the Games.
Since then, few protests have generated as much attention, but that hasn’t stopped athletes from seizing their moment in the spotlight.
At the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, Vladyslav Heraskevych, a Ukrainian athlete in the sliding sport of skeleton, held up a sign that read, “No War in Ukraine" in front of TV cameras. At the time, Heraskevych said he thought the risk was worth it.
“If I can do something to stop war, I can sacrifice something in my life," he said. Days later, Russia invaded Ukraine.
Heraskevych has since become a critic of the IOC’s decision to allow some Russian athletes cleared by the IOC to compete as neutrals in Paris. The IOC has said that, among other things, Russian athletes who “actively support" the war and those who are contracted to the Russian or Belarusian military or national security agencies cannot compete.
If athletes with those ties make it into the Paris Games despite the screening process, Heraskevych said, then athletes would be justified in protesting.
What might happen to athletes deemed to violate the IOC’s policy is unclear. Although the Olympic charter says it could kick athletes out of the Games or even force them to return medals, the IOC has no recent history of doing that.
Still, the head of the Ukrainian Olympic Committee has publicly recommended that Ukrainian athletes speak out about the war inside the house set up for the Ukraine delegation in Paris, rather than in the Olympic Village or during competition.
At Beijing 2022, an IOC official told Heraskevych that his “No War" sign was an expression of peace, not a protest, which made it permissible. Other potential protests that surfaced in Beijing or at the Tokyo Games were addressed through National Olympic Committees or International Federations, an IOC spokesman said.
U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee CEO Sarah Hirshland said the organization has made sure athletes know where they are and aren’t allowed to protest. But the USOPC also makes clear that at the Games, U.S. athletes are guests of the IOC.
Louise Radnofsky contributed to this article.
