From public demonstrations regarding the invasion of Ukraine to the choice of music for choreographies that do not contain an encrypted message, the number of conditions for various sports organizations, including the IOC, for Russian athletes to be able to compete in Paris 2024 under a neutral flag and an Olympic anthem may seem too many, unprecedented and even arbitrary. But they are not unpublished.
For almost a century, the main sports corporations have been as harsh with any demonstration considered ideological in nature as they are relaxed when it comes to peering from the desks on the long-running issue of sport/politics. Ideological considerations are understood from openly discriminatory expressions - logically and necessarily punishable - such as those in support of, for example, the LGBTIQ+ movement.
More than half a century ago, in 1968, the world went through an extremely intense period, one of those that seemed to predict a period of definitive change in societies. With its fundamental axis in the mythical May of Paris —in effect, which began in March- and more or less close relatives in the Prague Spring and the assassination of Martin Luther King, the world seemed to begin on a path of no return. Each of you will know how to evaluate if this was the case or it was just a tender youthful fantasy.
The extraordinary games in Mexico 1968 were no stranger to such a troubled time: just ten days before the Opening Ceremony, in the Plaza de las Tres Cultures, the so-called Tlatelolco Massacre took place, in which armed forces of diverse origins - from the army to a para-police brigade - suppressed a popular movement led by students from the main Mexican universities to teachers, workers or housewives; even today, it is said that we do not know the exact number of deaths on that occasion.
Almost as another example of the fact that, when Olympism moves on the slopes, pools and courts, nothing can do with it, the games took place not only without problems but with an unforgettable sporting balance with stars that shone, from the Czech gymnast Vera Caslavska to the North Americans Bob Beamon, the protagonist of the most impressive long jump of all time, and Dick Fosbury, who changed forever the way of jumping high.
They were, in addition, the 200-meter games cursed.
That electrifying distance, which exposed Usain Bolt as the only human being capable of keeping his knees so high for so many meters, offered a predictable 1-3 for the United States and a consecrated silver medal for Australia.
However, it wasn’t the race itself that turned an event into a curse, but what happened next.
Once on the podium, Tommie Smith, a gold medal, and John Carlos, a bronze medal, bowed their heads and raised a fist wrapped in a black glove during the North American anthem; Black Power was among us.
That same night, both athletes were expelled from the village and their credentials were taken away. Returning to their country, so prone to worshiping their Olympic heroes, they began to suffer from problems of all kinds, from work and sports to personal issues.
But there was more to it than that.
The second on that podium, the Australian Peter Norman, also had his suffering on his way back home. Although he was not sanctioned in Mexico -he did not join the issue of the glove-, the authorities of his country detected that, like his podium mates, he also wore an identification patch on his chest with the logo alluding to the cause. “It was in solidarity with Smith and Carlos but also in repudiation of the immigration policy of white Australia.”
Norman was suspiciously left out of the Munich 1972 athletic team and, as they say, the invitation to participate in the opening of Sydney 2000, attended by multiple historic medalists from his country, must have had some correspondence problem since it never came to his power.
After so much fuss, Carlos himself left a reflection that takes on a rabid actuality.
“Why do we have to wear our country’s uniform? Why are our anthems played? Why do we have to beat the Russians (Understand: Cold War times)? Why do East Germans have to beat West Germans? Where did the Olympic ideal of man against man end up?”
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