Let's go around the world and qualify for the Olympics and shake up the status quo
An ode to the continental games and what they mean in this landscape
The 2019 Pan American Games ended with a bang.
The sport was fine, and the event went off without too many major hitches — all things considered — to say it was a disaster. But in the final days of the Games in Lima, Peru, two athletes from the United States used the platforms offered to them as elite athletes to do what nearly all athletes at multi-sport events do: protest conditions at home.
Race Imboden kicked things off during the medal ceremony of the team fencing competition, taking a knee during the United States National Anthem. He then tweeted about his stance, clarifying this was, yes, a political protest.
Shortly after Imboden’s stance, U.S. hammer thrower Gwen Berry raised her fist during her medal ceremony, an ode to the protests by John Carlos and Tommie Smith at the 1968 Summer Olympics, to protest inequality in the United States.
It is unlikely either athlete will face sanction given that the Pan American Games have wrapped up and that there hasn’t been a sanctioning at an Olympic Games since Carlos and Smith were expelled from the 1968 Olympics.
The protest comes at a fraught time in the United States where culture wars are being used for political purposes to energize voters based on directions in which each of the two main parties believe social norms in the United States should go. Nobody does this with more alarming frequency than the President of the United States, who spent his morning spreading conspiracy theories about a prominent death, who just loves to traffic in his culture war rhetoric. As of now, Donald Trump has not waded into this situation, but given he loved to use NFL players kneeing for the same reason to nearly bring the league to a halt and regurgitate his favorite talking points, it really feels like it is only a matter of time before he weighs in on this situation.
It needs to be said that these protests’ heart is at the expansion of civil and human rights in the United States at a time when the alleged moral compass of the world is backsliding on many of its commitments both at home and abroad on that front. I’m not here to tell you to side with both athletes, but it is important that athletes continue to use their voice to promote causes of social inclusion, given that is the IOC’s core mission of spreading sports worldwide, and without athletes there is no Olympics, Pan American Games, or sub regional Games below it.
Michael Pavitt, a reporter at Inside the Games, brought up a good point: these protests are going to put the IOC between a rock and a hard place. The athletes’ rhetoric echoes that of Thomas Bach himself, and if athletes feel they can protest at the PanAm Games, what is to say these kinds of protests don’t happen at the 2020 Olympics? There was one on the final day of competition at Rio 2016 at the end of the marathon, but the timing of the situation made it almost impossible for the IOC to respond. This situation echoed that done by Feyisa Lilesa, who admittedly said he was likely unable to return to his home in Ethiopia by taking a stand.
Imboden’s and Berry’s story made waves in U.S media, which is good considering how the PanAm Games kind of tend to float in the periphery in the largest sporting country in the Americas (North, Central, and South). The United States utterly dominated the medal table, again, by sending a mix of athletes looking to qualify for the 2020 Olympics, and developmental squads to compete in sports that have Olympic qualifying World Championships this summer.
The final year before the 2020 Olympics is reserved for test events in Japan, and events around the world that qualify athletes for the 2020 Olympics.
In the dead of summer, a number of these events are happening around the world in the five continental associations, which serve as regional outposts for the Olympic movement. Four associations, Africa, the Americas, Europe, and Oceania are holding multi-sport events which serve as regional Olympics to grow sports in each continental area, and to qualify athletes for the next Olympics.
We almost had a clean sweep of all five happening in the same year, but Asia held the quadrennial Asian Games in 2018 instead of 2019 to prevent conflict with the 2019 Indonesian election. Given the contentious nature of that event, and the post-election rioting that rocked Jakarta…this proved to be the right move.
These games unmistakably provide a platform for athletes in each region to get valuable high-level experience before the Olympics, and allow larger countries to give more experience to up-and-coming athletes.
Over 6,600 athletes competed at the 2019 Pan American Games from 41 Olympic Committees. It is one of the largest non-Olympic multi-sport events in the world.
It also barely got off. Peru lagged behind in its preparations with construction finishing up just months before the Games started. Predictably, during the Games, transportation was a real headache and there were constant worries about the state of services offered to media, athletes, and officials.
Peru used the Games to spur billions in sporting development in Lima from the central government at a time when floods rocked the country just years ago, and the fallout from the ongoing Odebrecht scandal continues to reap havoc on the political class in the country. Officials still do not have a legacy plan, despite successfully hosting the event.
None of these storylines are that unfamiliar for continental events, which struggle to capture relevancy to a wide audience, and can leave countries burdened with white elephants. Yet, there is a pride to being able to host athletes from the entire region in a spectacle that rivals the size of the Olympic Games.
Yet, I’m always left wondering if these events are “worth it” after covering them. On paper, it makes sense to push for events that are stepping stones to the Olympics, but that assumption is based on the default of the Olympics being a good paragon for elite sport. I’ve covered two Continental Games in my tenure as a staff reporter for Around the Rings, the 2014 and 2018 Asian Games.
Both had major storylines that really…were not about sport. The 2014 Games saw North Korea participating in a multi-sport event in South Korea for the first time (before the PyeongChang detente, which took place in entirely different circumstances and that’s a totally different post), and had numerous athletes from different countries defect to South Korea in search of economic activity.
The 2018 Games saw Indonesia rush to be able to host the Games on short notice after Vietnam pulled out, and dealt with worries of extra-judicial killings by the police in the run up to the event.
Even the other two Continental Games this year were never truly about sport. The 2019 European Games were held in Minsk, where Human Rights Watch sent observers to ensure that press freedom during the Games would be upheld because of the authoritarian situation in the country. Samoa hosted the 2019 Pacific Games on short notice after Tonga pulled out, and relied on Chinese development to get the venues built. There was also the rehashing of debating the situation by which Laurel Hubbard, a woman from New Zealand who has transitioned, legally competed at the Games, which would fit in the analysis of culture wars earlier in the piece.
Africa is the final continent to host its regional Games this year, in Morocco. The battle for control over the African Games has been never ending it seems, and ANOCA the continental administrative body in charge of African Olympic-recognized sports, only officially named Morocco the host last year after a last minute election due to irregularities from its 2017 Congress. The Olympic Channel has a great rundown of what to expect, which everyone should read.
As these events struggle to sometimes to get sponsors and mainstream coverage I’ve always wondered what it is like to cover multiple of these events across the world.
So, I emailed Michael Pavitt from ITG about it given that he is on his fifth Continental Games and covered the 2018 European Championships in Berlin and Glasgow (think the European Games but organized only by some sport federations).
“I think the biggest difference [between regional Games and the Olympics] is the interest from the public and strength in depth of certain sports,” Pavitt said.
“For instance, the Pacific Games had three different types of rugby and weightlifting was one of the big draws for the crowd. Whereas athletics is such a big draw for so many nations at the Pan American Games.
There are even the splits across a continent, the European Games feels very combat sport heavy as the first two editions have been in Eastern Europe. Whereas its rival European Sport Championships feels a bit more “Western” with cycling, rowing and golf.
Obviously, it is because the public attention goes towards the sport’s their country are good at.
The strength in depth comes hand in hand with that. You can find yourself watching an event which could be world or Olympic standard one second, then have a sport where the standard is quite low the next.”
When asked if he thinks these Games tend to be “worth it,” it was hard to get a full answer because so much context is required to assess any of these events (which is honestly why I write this newsletter in the first place, please forgive me).
Many of these events have ulterior motives besides sport development, which consistently move the goalposts with regards to each’s worth. Should Peru be spending as much money as it did to build sport facilities? Possible not in this economy, but when was it ever going to do it without the Pan American Games? These buildings if used right could have a lasting benefit even if they never reach the costs which were required for them to be built. Sometimes political projects operate at a loss and are still beneficial. But it is hard to make this claim when the country is grappling with political crisis after political crisis and is not investing in its population at large, arguably. Would the money used on the 2019 PanAms be used for social development in a positive way? Who is to say.
These thought experiments can be applied to almost all regional events.
“For instance, the European Games in Baku was billed as Azerbaijan’s “coming out” party, both in terms of profile, a sporting destination, while you can’t overlook the political incentives for it,” Pavitt said.
“Sapporo 2017 seemed to mark the start of a flirtation with Japan and a bid for the Winter Olympics. Lima 2019 has felt far more about developing sport infrastructure in Peru.
Sticking with Lima you can make the argument that they would never have been able to get Government support to build the facilities without needing to build them for a large-scale event. Peru realistically weren’t going to bid/stand a chance at hosting the Olympic Games, so the Pan American Games makes sense.
Will it be worth it? Cannot be sure yet. A lot really depends on the Government and sporting organisations using the venues and having a real plan in place. If the venues remain unused, absolutely not and you can see from the fact the hockey venue is built in a deprived part of the city there would be justifiable claims the money should have been spent on other things.”
As is the theme with many of these newsletters, the system in place is likely to continue as is for the foreseeable future. The next set of Continental Games will come before Paris 2024 and then Los Angeles 2028 after that. The events will likely grow as more sports are being added to the Olympic project like ever before.
Protests, legacy, and mixed interest is not going to stop the train that long ago left the station. There are 347 days until Tokyo 2020. If you haven’t booked a spot, it is time to get qualifying.
What I am reading/writing
-I have a piece up in the Japan Times about the chance the 2020 Paralympics have to remake Japanese sport and society. I think it is an interesting topic. Check it out.
-45 people have died from the latest heatwave in Tokyo, which comes at the same time as the 2020 Olympics, NHK reported. Also, a construction worker died of suspected heat stroke at Tokyo Big Sight during upgrades for the 2020 Olympics. This story is not going away, and continues to get more grave.
-The US baseball team that is looking to medal at Tokyo 2020 will have a World Series winning manager at the helm.
-The Asahi Shimbun has the lowdown of if you want to spend over $63,000 on Olympic tickets for only 11 events.
-Two people needed medical treatment at the beach volleyball test event, which the Tokyo Metropolitan Government tested heat countermeasures, reports Reuters. Japanese reporters even staked out the start of the marathon at 6 a.m. the day it is set to be run in 2020 and took the temperature. It was very hot, according to the Japan Times.
-Can the 2020 Olympics catalyze Japan’s economy like the 1964 Games did? The Diplomat doesn’t think so.
-You have until Aug. 19 to register for the second Tokyo 2020 ticket lottery if you live in Japan.
-CBC correspondent Adam Walsh writes about what it was like to leave Tokyo after being posted there for three years and diving right back into work at home.
-While holding events in Fukushima is incredibly controversial, Kyodo reports about those who are hoping for the 2020 PR boost.