Jules Boykoff is the author of Power Games: A Political History of the Olympics. He teaches politics at Pacific University in Oregon.
The International Olympic Committee has declined to curtail Israel’s involvement in the 2024 games and has placed half-hearted limits on Russia. The IOC claims it opposes the politicization of sport — but the Olympics are a historically political institution.
Olympic Games host cities experience increased gentrification, police surveillance, and environmental destruction. Anti-Olympics activists hosted their second transnational summit in Paris last weekend to put an end to the games’ destruction.
Liberals and leftists agree: the International Olympic Committee is a blatantly hypocritical institution bent on prioritizing profits over people worldwide. Anti-Olympics activists can use this moment to fortify their long-standing efforts against the five-ring machine.
The world’s top athletes coming together in a spirit of friendly competition is a beautiful vision. But the Olympics have become a machine for the ruthless extraction of profit at the expense of working-class people.
The South Korea Olympics will kick off one year today. Will they face the same popular resistance as Rio?
It might not be captured on primetime Olympic coverage, but Brazilians are welcoming the Games with mass protest.
The Rio Olympics are taking to the extreme the overblown promises and neoliberal development now typical of the games.