Less Wretched Excess, Please

Let’s face it. The Olympics have finally spun out of control. Think not? Then take the following quiz: Who was the gold-medal winner in Rhythmic Gymnastics? What is Rhythmic Gymnastics? Name the horse Australian Matthew Ryan rode to victory in the Three-Day Equestrian Event. Who was the Single Worldwide Food Sponsor of the Games?

Answering four out of four correctly indicates that you have a serious psychological disorder that will require extensive hospitalization. Getting three out of four places you at the exalted “Hodori Level of Olympic Achievement.” This allows you to pose for a picture (taken by the official camera loaded with the official film) next to Hodori, who, you will recall, is the former official Olympic mascot from Seoul. Two out of four means you are either a rhythmic gymnast or the parent of one. My condolences. Just so everyone can get an answer right, the name of the gold-medal-winning horse from Down Under is Kibah Tic Toc. Really.

The Olympics have got into a mess, in part, because they are so successful. More athletes competed in Barcelona and more medals were won than in any previous Olympics. More spectators watched it all happen, live and on television. All of which is bound to please the companies that clothe, feed and otherwise remunerate the athletes. The goals of the sponsors (among them the company that publishes this magazine) are straightforward. They hope that you and those with access to your credit cards will watch an event, feel good about the fingernail polish displayed by the winner, then dash out to the Official Convenience Store of the Games and buy a case.

In the marketing dodge, that is known as rub-off. Don’t roll your eyes. There are companies that can prove Olympic rub-off is more powerful than fried garlic. Consider: the athletic-shoe business alone generates $13 billion annually in retail worldwide sales. Shorts, socks, sweatbands and such are worth a couple of billion dollars more. So the prospect of Michael Jordan mounting the victory stand to accept his gold medal in basketball wearing togs provided by his very own sponsor, Nike, naturally had the folks at Reebok stamping their feet. Reebok purchased the exclusive modeling rights, they thought, to the victory stand.

Olympic business has been very good to the International Olympic Committee as well. Its full-time paid staff has ballooned from 30 to 100 since Juan Antonio Samaranch was elected president in 1980. Revenues from the sale of TV rights and sponsorships have exploded during the same time. NBC, for example, paid $401 million for the rights to televise these Games, and the dozen companies chosen as TOP sponsors shelled out an additional $170 million. But in significant ways, the International Olympic Committee resembles the College of Cardinals. The IOC does not communicate via smoke signals but probably has a committee headed by a prince or earl studying its feasibility. The 96 IOC members answer to no one but themselves. The IOC budget is a secret. “We have no shareholders,” says IOC spokeswoman Michele Verdier, by way of explanation.

She is dead wrong. There are 5.4 billion shareholders in the Olympics. The Olympic Charter has it right when it states that the goal of the Games is to have sport serve “the harmonious development of man, with a view to encouraging the establishment of a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.” Where the Olympic Charter goes astray is on the very next page, on which the IOC arrogates for itself Supreme Authority. When you’re eight years old and have broken the antique crystal decanter, your mother is the supreme authority. So too are the deities in various, but not all, religions. Men in blazers, who have become powerful and imperious as a result of the Olympics, don’t qualify.

To improve the Games then, one must start with the IOC itself. A self- perpetuating oligarchy is not in the Olympic movement’s interest. Membership should be limited to a single eight-year term. Hold an election. Every living medal winner gets one vote. Active athletes should make up 60% of the membership since they, not officials, are the principals of the Games. Roughly half of the Olympic events are for women, therefore half of the seats on the IOC should go to women as well. To eliminate the temptation of bribery, the allegations of which have tainted dealings between cities eager to host the Games and IOC members of questionable rectitude, choose a permanent Olympic site. Hold the Winter Games in Chamonix or elsewhere in the Alps where venues have already been built. The Barcelona Games have been boffo. Let Atlanta have its shot, then return the Games to Catalonia. Granted, the Games’ roots are in Athens. But the abysmal air quality there would stifle athletes and spectators alike. On that subject, future games in Barcelona should be held in the cool of autumn.

Get the drugs out of the Games. Require blood tests of all athletes, not just selected ones. Schedule the tests randomly so participants cannot predict when they might be called. Athletes might choose not to be tested. That is their right. By so doing, however, they would also choose to become Olympic spectators.

One is tempted to suggest pruning the athletic program, especially in the summer. But Rhythmic Gymnastics should have its nanosecond in the stadium. Better yet, ban all national flags. People who stick up their fingers in the “We’re No. 1” gesture will be given one-way tickets to Sarajevo, where they can observe firsthand the lengths some people go to prove that senseless point. Finally, take the brand names off the uniforms, shoes, sunglasses and socks. Let the athletes merely advertise themselves, glorious performers stretching human endeavor to its limits.