The original olympics of 776 BCE were held at Olympia, and athletes - all men - competed in the nude. The games had religious significance, which is how the games came to be banned in 393 CE by the newly Christian Roman conquerors, who proceeded to destroy those beautiful Greek temples (Think Taleban!).
When we speak of the modern Olympics, we mean the games organised by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who founded the International Olympic Committee.
He banned nudity in competition and also women. No women competed in 1896, as de Coubertin felt their inclusion would be "impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic, and incorrect." Obviously he didn't imagine beach volleyball.
While today's athletes are a diverse and inclusive lot, the IOC itself is far from that. From the beginning of its inception to today, the committee has given employment to a hodgepodge of aristocrats, princes, barons, counts, and lords. Eventually, rich businessmen were invited but women, not until 1981. This composition may account for the authoritarian and elitist methods of the IOC.
The IOC manages a vast multinational commercial corporation with all that implies. Host cities are responsible for all the costs of the games while profits go to the IOC. Profits from the games are thus capitalised and the costs are socialised. No host city since Los Angeles in 1984 has ever reaped a profit. That's because the IOC had not exerted its complete control over intellectual property and advertising until after 1984.
Los Angeles leased out the Olympic brand and netted US$275 million. Ever since, the IOC has tightly controlled all advertising revenue, of which the cities get a share. Cities are required to police intellectual property, and "high-handed" just barely describes the way a quilting club who tried to use the word Olympic was enjoined from doing so. Somehow my Microsoft word-processor insists that "Olympic" is capitalised while "president" or "queen" need not be.
Then there's the odious politics, the bribery scandals, too lengthy to be detailed here. The IOC has set down the security requirements that caused Britain to have more troops stationed in London than in Afghanistan. And while tickets for several events remain unsold, seats reserved for the favoured at swimming and gymnastics are vacant. Perhaps even the special VIP lanes created at great cost and inconvenience to London's common traffic are nonetheless insufficient incentive to bring those fancy bums to their reserved seats.
It may be time to consider a new international umbrella sports organisation , one that hews more closely to the ideals of athletic competition of fairness, less contaminated by commercialism. We'd need a new word for it, of course. The IOC owns the old one.
