Last Updated on: 21st February 2014, 09:30 am
Other than that bit with the sports, the Olympics are pretty much the absolute worst. Here’s just one more reason why. IOC Rejects Ukrainian Olympians’ Request To Honor Dead
The Ukraine Olympic Committee said this morning that it “shares deep pain over the loss of fellow countrymen,” and requested permission for its athletes to wear black armbands as an “expression of sorrow and sympathy.”
The IOC said no, citing the Olympic charter which bans political statements of any kind. Their definition of “political” is expansive—The IOC already nixed stickers honoring the late Canadian skier Sarah Burke, and reprimanded Norwegian skiers for wearing black armbands commemorating the death of a teammate’s brother.
So to recap, awarding the Olympic Games to regimes like Russia and China with their glimmering human rights records and histories of honesty and virtue? Fine. Simple, symbolic expressions of genuine grief? Get bent.
Sometimes it’s really hard to separate what the Olympics are supposed to be all about from what the Olympics are increasingly truly all about.
This really does epitomize everything that’s wrong with the Olympics. It’s gotten to the point where I actually feel like a worse human being for enjoying the games so much…because enjoy them I do. They’re unparalleled entertainment and sucks me in every time, even in the summer.
I think it really started to bother me when China got the Olympics in 2008. I don’t remember who it was exactly, but somebody from the IOC gave the reasoning that he thought the games would cause China to basically straighten up and fly right. That drove me nuts. I’d known for some time that the IOC and pretty much everything else about the Olympics was shifty at best and rotten to the core at worst, but the China thing totally drove it home. I felt so scummy watching those games and enjoying them, and I don’t think I’ve ever quite recovered.