Baron Pierre de Coubertin had an ideal of bringing people together through sport. Does this ideal still exist in the Olympics? I believe this is both a true comment and a false comment

As the Olympics began to grow bigger and stronger and more countries began to become involved and in my opinion this is where coubertins ideal becomes to evolve in a negative way. As the Olympics became more popular and more people watched, the stakes rose. It soon changed from “competing” to need for winning and I believe this is where the question is false. Coubertins Olympics was about the sport and bringing people together, but soon politics began to rear its head in the event, something I believe should be left out of sport all together.

The 1936 Olympics is a great example of this. Also dubbed  “Hitler’s games”. This brought the most political controversy the Olympics had seen, something coubertin definitely didn’t want to see. Hitler used the games as a display to show the world the strength of Nazi Germany. This was defiantely what the Olympics weren’t made for, taking away the whole ideal what Coubertin wanted. The games also caused segregation, Jews were excluded from selection from the German team this definitely not bringing people together. Racism was also brought about through these Olympics through the black athlete Jesse Owens who in the end became nothing short of an Olympic legend as he upset Hitler and the whole of Germany by beating the Blonde Lutz Long, this infuriating Hitler. With all these happenings, it threw coubertins ideal of bringing people together and done the complete opposite of moving people away from each other.

I believe a big difference from coubertins modern Olympics and now is the change of the athletes from sportsmanship to gamesmanship. The athletes that competed in coubertins Olympics competed within the framework of the rules but most importantly intently for the spirit of the rules and in this case the Olympics. Now I see gamesmanship is now in order where the intention to compete to the limit allowed by the rules and beyond and if possible without penalty in order to win. I see this has become about due to what as I see as the main reason things have changed in Olympics and that is the rising of commercial activity in the Olympics. With the commercial side now about in Olympics the ideal has changed athletes goals have changed it now is for the money and the fame where as before this was never the case. Sponsors now have a huge place in the Olympics mostly every athlete is sporting a logo or name of some well known brand on there shorts or running suit all in the name of making money for themselves and the companies. This of course opens a wider audience with more people involved but in turn I believe this commerciality doesn’t have a place in sport. Sport should belong with sport, where commercial should belong in commercial places like billboards and the papers. Coubertins ideal of bringing people together has happened but in an all negative way. The Olympic spirit seems to be put to the side, where money comes in nowadays.

Drug use, cheating, poitical interference the Olympics has seen the lot.the two c’s has taken over “The biggest sporting even in the world” controversy and commercial. People have been brought together but all in the wrong manner from what Coubertin wanted and how it used to be. In my opinion if the Olympics carry on this way the fire of the Olympic spirit will soon die out.


By Matthew McNulty