Keep Politics Off Olympic Podium

I’m tired of spin. I’m tired of politics. I’m tired of gray areas. Just once during this election year I wanted something concrete. I thought I had found that in the Olympics, but seemingly, just like everything else in this crazy election year, the games in Athens became politicized by columnists, commentators and campaign managers. And for me at least, it left a very sour taste in my mouth.

To me it seems the Olympics are a gold mine for a journalist. Every day, world class athletes turn in awe inspiring performances and in doing so, shed light on hundreds of human interest stories worthy of the Hallmark Hall of Fame. But apparently that’s not enough. Apparently we have to read something into everything, either because the media is overambitious or because the public demands it. We can’t take pleasure in the simplicity of the Games anymore. Swifter, Higher, Stronger doesn’t cut it anymore. Now we need Juicier, Murkier, and More Controversial.

Returning medals, doping, rooting against the U.S. men’s basketball team, linking the impressive run of the Iraqi soccer team to the Bush administration, the toning down of the anthem, the global view of American athletes — those are the headlines that dominated the morning editions and the news shows. And oh, by the way our athletes won 103 medals.

But instead of focusing on what could have been the 103 greatest moments in these athletes’ lives, we’ve been focusing on the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) asking Paul Hamm to return the gold medal that they awarded him.

Now tell me, why should Hamm have to clean up the mess made by FIG? After the IOC has said the score will not be changed, after FIG President Bruno Granbi said in an interview “there is no doubt that [Hamm] won the medal,” after Hamm had left Athens and for all intents and purposes the issue was dead, why tell a kid that he’s the best in the world, give him a medal that he has worked his whole life to achieve and then ask for it back when he has done nothing wrong? FIG is trying to shift the blame and it is outrageous. They made the mistake, the results stand. That’s just the way it is. Just ask the 1998-99 Buffalo Sabers who saw their dream of a Stanley Cup swept away when the Dallas Stars scored a goal that should have been disallowed for Brett Hull having his skate in the crease.

That’s sports. You lose, even if it’s a bad call, you shake hands and move on. Not so in politics, where the same trivial minutiae gets repeated endlessly, news cycle after news cycle.

Instead of talking about the wonderful performances of Hamm and South Korean Pae Young Wang, we’re debating the morality of Hamm keeping the medal and the political implications of such a move. Does it make Hamm a greedy American if he keeps the medal? Is it another sign of American imperialism and bias?

But this political emphasis doesn’t just come from the media. The Bush Campaign has launched a controversial ad taking credit for the participation of Iraq and Afghanistan in the Athens games. And while factually it’s true — the Iraqi soccer team doesn’t have to worry about being tortured by Uday Hussein for failing to win a bronze medal — and the team’s presence is certainly newsworthy, should Head Coach Adnad Hamad have had to constantly endure questions about his opinion on the American President or the situation in his home country while he was trying to prepare his team to win its second-ever medal against a premier Italian soccer program?

Couldn’t we just be happy for this underdog team that they managed to side step the strife and bring glory to a country that could really use some good news? Apparently not. We have to talk politics.

Even on the medal podium, we have to talk politics. Maureen Dowd wrote last week that she believed our anthem was toned down so as not to offend international sensibilities concerning perceived American global dominance, writing: “Even America’s warlike anthem has been transformed from blaring horns to peaceful, soothing strings.”

A great observation, and maybe it would be a valid point had it not been composed in 1994 by Slovakian composer Peter Breiner, the same composer who arranged every other country’s anthem playing during the medal ceremonies of these games.

Last Thursday night the announcers on NBC repeatedly claimed that the boos raining down on the finalists in the men’s 200m were directed at the Americans. Maybe. But I’m sure they probably had a lot more to do with the fact that hometown Greek hero Kostas Kenteris was been booted from the event after he failed to show for a drug test at the start of the games.

Just stop. All of you. Once, just once every four years can we please just let sports be sports? Can’t we let applause just be support and not a political statement? Have we reached a point that we can’t take pleasure in the simplicity of athletic competition, but instead have to infuse a healthy dose of political intrigue? Must we read something into everything?

These athletes are not members of the Bush administration. The U.S. Olympic team is not the fifth branch of the U.S. armed forces, nor are they an extension of American foreign policy.

Do we really think that when 19-year-old Michael Phelps, who lives with his Mother in Baltimore and has trained with countless early mornings of laps and conditioning, steps onto the medal platform to accept one of his eight medals he’s thinking “Man, this rendition of the Star Spangled Banner seems artificially toned down. I’m really glad they didn’t add that extra Viola and a third French horn, though. Then the world would really hate America.”

They’re athletes. Period. They’re kids. Period. Let them enjoy what they’ve earned.

I’m not naïve enough to think that politics plays no part in the Olympics, and clearly issues outside of sports have intertwined themselves with athletics, but will it kill the us to forgo political commentary for 16 days?

Now that everything is over, and all the medals have been handed out, feel free to analyze however you wish. But when the games are going on, they should belong to those playing them.