IOC flying on Wing, prayer

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Tuesday, May 11, 2004

IOC flying on Wing, prayer

By JOHN LEVESQUE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

As we all wait for the Games of Athens to become the calamity that seems to have been predicted since Olympians competed in the altogether, the International Olympic Committee has a marvelous opportunity to make the 2004 Summer Games a rousing success in at least one aspect of its stated raison d'etre: international cooperation and harmony.

Of course, the IOC won't avail itself of the opportunity because the IOC is not given to precipitous action decided upon in a mere three months' time.

So let's consider this a planting of the seed for, say, the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, or 2008 in Beijing, or 2010 in Vancouver, or any time that proves convenient in the next century. Heck, someone high up in the Olympic movement is bound to realize the old nation-vs.-nation setup is a dreadful idea if it really wants to promote a warm and fuzzy world.

Not that representing one's nation in athletic competition is inherently bad. It's only bad when the IOC, enthusiastically abetted by the media, encourages the Olympic Games to evolve into a my-country-is-better-than- yours jingofest.

Where's John Ian Wing when you need him?

Near as I can determine, Wing is in his mid-60s and retired in London. As a 17-year-old Chinese-Australian in 1956, Wing sent a letter to the organizers of the Melbourne Games, suggesting a way to promote peace and understanding.

Concerned that the world was spinning out of control -- the Soviet Union had invaded Hungary a month before the Games were scheduled to begin, and Israel, in conjunction with France and England, invaded Egypt five days later -- Wing proposed a change in the closing ceremony.

By Olympic tradition, the teams marched separately under their nations' flags, just as they did in the opening ceremony. Wing thought it would be cool if all the athletes marched together, a living, breathing mass of apolitical good feelings. Remarkably, the Melbourne organizers bought it. Wing's we're-all-in-this-together idea has survived a half-century of tweaking and, in more recent years, the tendency to overproduce the Olympic ceremonies for the benefit of TV advertisers.

Granted, it's hard to find an Olympic year when some nation isn't doing bad things to another. This year, for instance, the Athens Olympic might be a wholly unpleasant experience for athletes from the United States.

It doesn't take a seasoned diplomat to realize that in some parts of the planet right now the USA is about as popular as a box of carbohydrates.

The way we used to feel when U.S. teams played the old Iron Curtain teams is how some countries now feel about us. We ignore the United Nations, they say. We invade sovereign countries, they say. We humiliate their citizens, they say.

How that will translate to behavior in the Athenian bleachers is hard to foresee. If memory serves, Olympic spectators tend to be enthusiastic, but polite. Still, what an opportunity to depoliticize the Olympics by taking Wing's idea and flying with it. In applying his closing-ceremony initiative to the opening ceremony -- no national flags, no separate delegations -- the Olympics would be getting back to its noble basics.

And why not take it a giant step further? The whole concept of the medal ceremony featuring the flags and anthems of the winners started -- surprise, surprise -- at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1932. Before that, it was less a display of nationalism and more a celebration of athletic achievement as envisioned by Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympics.

What a concept! How could anyone be opposed?

Truly, we shouldn't care one whit if American athletes win more medals than any other country.

Moreover, we shouldn't exult that some spirited competitor lost because he or she comes from a country we're not supposed to like at the moment.

We're supposed to appreciate the commitment and the struggle, not the government and its strategy.

There are even more dramatic ways to purify the Olympics, such as eliminating team sports, making the athletes wear common uniforms and having a handful of designated cities host the Games on a rotating basis.

This could eliminate all sorts of special-interest lobbying, which is precisely why it will never happen. Even in its freshly scrubbed, post-scandal version, the IOC is an elitist bureaucracy built on and sustained by the care and feeding of special interests. For any number of reasons, these special interests -- the corporate sponsors, the status-seeking politicians, the national Olympic committees -- would also blanch if the opening ceremony and the medal ceremonies were devoid of ties to national identity.

They would stand to lose money, prestige, power, you name it. All in the name of peace and friendship.

Paging John Ian Wing, paging Mr. Wing ...

Or maybe there's a Greek teenager ready to put forth a new bold and beautiful idea.

P-I columnist John Levesque can be reached at 206-448-8330 or johnlevesque@seattlepi.com