Winning is Not Enough: Sport and Politics in East Asia and Beyond

Abstract

Avery Brundage, once head of the International Olympic Committee, described politics as ‘a savage monster’ always trying to disrupt sport. But Brundage was defending the decision not to withhold the 1936 Olympic Games from Nazi Germany. Thus, defending the sanctity of sport can itself be political. Sport is especially political in Asia. In the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Chinese ran a gauntlet of political causes ranging from corporate boycotts of the Games over China's policies in Darfur to an Olympic torch procession attacked by demonstrators in London, Paris, San Francisco and Seoul. By comparison, London had virtually no politics associated with it – unless you read deep political messages in the story of Mary Poppins or the reunion of the Spice Girls. This article makes three key points. First, the Olympics and international sport for that matter are intensely political. Second, sport is most intensely political in this region of the world. Third, the lessons we learn about the politics of sport have relevance for Russia's hosting of the 2014 Sochi Winter Games in the form of an inescapable dilemma that illiberal regimes bring upon themselves, called the Olympic ‘Catch-22’.