Has geopolitical wrestling overshadowed the Olympics?

Russian media have dismissed Paris 2024 as the "Olympics of hell" as political tensions threaten to overshadow the event.

"I thought the Olympic Games were about sport," Russian MP Mariya Butina told the BBC. "No longer," she said, because now it's "about politics, religion, everything".

Yet Moscow has been accused of stoking geopolitical and culture war tensions that boiled over during the last fortnight.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

What did the commentators say?

The Paris Games have been "hijacked by culture wars between Russia and the west", said Nathalie Tocci in The Guardian. The "politicisation" began with the opening ceremony's rendition of a feast of Dionysus, which was "immediately confused" with Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper". This caused "a furore among socially conservative groups worldwide" and the artistic director, Thomas Jolly, received death threats.

Then "all hell broke loose" after a viral disinformation campaign about Algerian boxer Imane Khelif's gender identity. The "false" claim that Khelif is a transgender athlete was "echoed by figures as prominent" as Donald Trump, Elon Musk, J.K. Rowling, and "legions of racist and antitransgender trolls on social media", wrote Bilel Nasiri for New Lines Magazine, putting her "unwittingly at the centre of Western culture wars".

But the issue of women's boxing is "part of a much wider Russian-led campaign against the west", said Tocci. Moscow has targeted the Games' organisers because they've "isolated Russia since its invasion of Ukraine". Cast out of the Games "as a pariah", Russia "appears to be hell-bent on hating on the international sporting tournament in Paris", said CNBC.

Russian media outlets, most of which are linked to the Russian state, have "appeared to revel in misfortunes and controversies" that have "sprung up during the competition". Some Moscow media figures have even described the few Russian athletes who have competed in Paris as "traitors", said Euronews.

Elsewhere, Taiwan's government spoke out over an incident at the men's doubles badminton final between players from Taiwan and China – a supporter had her sign reading "Let's go Taiwan" ripped from her hands and torn up. Taiwanese spectators and commentators said the incident brought geopolitics to the fore by highlighting "the tremendous pressure Taiwan has long faced from China", said VOA.

Taiwan is only allowed to participate in the Olympics and other international competitions under the name Chinese Taipei, said The Associated Press, and it cannot fly its own flag or play its national anthem. "Despite that," Taiwanese fans at the badminton final sang the anthem during the medal ceremony, "drawing a huge wave of support online".

Russia's exclusion also "led to speculation" that its agents may have been responsible for a series of railway sabotages that caused significant travel disruption on the opening day of the Games, said Simon Chadwick and Paul Widdop on The Conversation.

But as much as social media has been the forum for lots of cultural and geopolitical tension this summer, it has also "enabled some competitors to have their moment in the spotlight", said Forbes. "Rarely do the 'shooting' stars" of the Games get "much more than a passing mention", but "this certainly wasn't the case this year" as Kim Ye-ji and Yusuf Dikeç made the pistol shooting competitions a viral hit.

What next?

Attention now turns to future events and these are already being discussed in political terms. Describing the Paris opening ceremony as a "disgrace", Trump said that no such thing would be allowed to happen when the 2028 Summer Olympics convene in Los Angeles – "which he no doubt assumes will be under his watch as president", said Tocci.

Meanwhile, Indonesia's ambition to host the 2036 Olympics could "go up in flames" over geopolitics, said the South China Morning Post, because a "major hurdle" would be its "strained political ties with Israel". Last year, Indonesia was stripped of hosting rights for a major football tournament amid political controversy sparked by "high-level politicians opposing Israel's participation".