Opinion

The Olympics: Time for Some Rethinking

The Latin Olympic motto, translated in English as “faster, higher, stronger” could, unfortunately, be supplemented by the addition of “ever more corrupt.”
The Olympics: Time for Some Rethinking
The Olympic Canoe/Kayak Slalom Center at the Helliniko Olympic complex in Athens, Greece, on July 31, 2014. Milos Bicanski/Getty Images
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“Citius, Altius, Fortius”—Olympic motto

The Latin Olympic motto, translated in English as “faster, higher, stronger,” could, unfortunately, be supplemented by the addition of “ever more corrupt.”

Indeed, the Olympic ideal of competition between uncompensated amateurs (other than with a laurel wreath for the victor) is not even a polite fiction on the level of the individual athlete. All involved compete for local/national endorsements, financial support, and high-tech training facilities.

The issue of the drug-enhanced athlete seems to be a competition between the athlete with the best pharmacy and those whose illegal drugs are detected by sophisticated testing. And when the competition was opened to fully paid professionals, for instance, basketball and tennis, the ideal of amateurism totally disappeared.

The distortion of the Olympics on the individual level is trivial when compared with the international competition to hold the games.