Not sports but politics is dominating the headlines in France, even as the capital gears up for the Olympic Games. A friend who was in Paris a couple of weeks ago tells The Telegraph that she and her co-travellers could not tell that the city would be hosting the biggest show on earth in a few days. “Maybe because of the elections or perhaps it has to do with the modern-day busyness of a cosmopolitan city,” she adds.
A couple from Calcutta, who was in Paris last month, said there were protests from the moment French President Emmanuel Macron dissolved Parliament and announced snap polls. They have an experience to share. While returning to Lille (France) from Ghent (Belgium), a rail protest stalled their journey. They had to take a bus from a nondescript railway station to reach their destination. They said, “The French take their protests very seriously and it became even more visible once the election dates were announced. But you cannot miss the buzz over the Paris Olympic Games. Our Sunday afternoon cruise on the Seine was cancelled because of an Olympic mock practice session.”
Elections and Games. The summer of 2024 has been tumultuous for the French people. So what if the Left-Centre eventually pushed back? For a while, it had seemed that the far-Right would form the government. After the first round of polls, and the gains by the far-Right National Rally, captain of the French football team Kylian Mbappé dubbed the results “catastrophic” and urged people to come out and vote. Mbappe’s father migrated from Cameroon and his mother is of Algerian origin. The National Rally is known for its anti-immigration philosophy. Party leader Jordan Bardella had promised to axe the “droit du sol”, which automatically grants French nationality at 18 years to people born in France to foreign parents, provided they have lived in the country for at least five years since the age of 11.
Gold medalist Tommie Smith (center) and bronze medalist John Carlos (right) showing the raised fist on the podium after the 200 m race at the 1968 Summer Olympics; both wear Olympic Project for Human Rights badges.
France has been churning, and the Olympics won’t stop that churn. “Politics will cast a shadow on the Paris Olympics. But history says that it has always been like that. Politics has been used as a tool to drive home a point in events such as the Olympic Games or the Fifa World Cup,” says Subhanil Chowdhury, who is associate professor at Calcutta’s St. Xavier’s University. “The 1936 Berlin Olympics is a case in point,” he adds.
The Berlin Olympics is also referred to as the Nazi Olympics. Germany had been picked to host the Games before the Nazis rose to power, but thereafter Hitler mined it to the hilt. His ministry of propaganda tried to piggyback on the Games to spread the theory of racial supremacy. Germany won the maximum number of medals, but the US dominated track and field events, and Black athlete Jesse Owens won four gold medals. The propaganda about “Aryan superiority” was undermined.
August 1936: Adolf Hitler watching the Olympic Games in Berlin with the Italian Crown Prince. Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images
“Everything in life is politics. So why should the Olympics be any different,” says former India football captain Bhaichung Bhutia. Fourteen years ago, just ahead of the Beijing Games, Bhaichung refused to participate in the New Delhi-leg of the Olympic torch relay. He says, “It was a personal decision. Being a Buddhist how could I participate when we all know what China was doing with Tibet? Many of my friends are Buddhists and it was my duty to stand with them.”
“People say sports and politics should not be mixed. We all know that’s rubbish. Politics and sports are intertwined. You see how the International Olympic Committee (IOC) or Fifa (the governing body of world football) function. The country that wins bids to host the Games or the Football World Cup. It’s all about politics,” says the man who quit politics recently.
Bhaichung is right. Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has long been accused of having lobbied for Qatar’s 2022 World Cup bid. In exchange, Qatar shopped for French fighter jets and also bought the football club Paris Saint-Germain.
Closer home, the Indian government has chosen Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s very own Ahmedabad over New Delhi as the city that will bid for the 2036 Games.
Graves of five victims of the Munich massacre at the Kiryat Shaul Cemetery, Tel Aviv, Israel. Wikipedia
“Right-wing parties have always used sports as a prop to invoke nationalism. There
cannot be a bigger stage than the Olympic Games. Imagine the publicity the Indian government will get with the bidding process,” says Souvik Naha, who is a senior lecturer at the University of Glasgow, Scotland.
Modi-haters, however, argue that this idea of bidding for the 2036 Games is one of countless things done to amplify Brand Modi.
That may be a tad too harsh though. There’s no denying the fact that Olympic sports got a huge boost 2014 onwards. Agreed that the 2010 Commonwealth Games was hosted by New Delhi, when the Manmohan Singh government was at the helm and the capital got a major facelift, but the subsequent corruption charges against Congress politicians like Suresh Kalmadi took away much of the sheen. Now there’s a circulating narrative about how all has changed since then.
Table tennis star Sharath Kamal, India’s male flagbearer during the opening ceremony of the Paris Games on July 26, said during a recent chat that the ruling party now ensures that each sportsperson gets the best of facilities to harness skills. “Post-2014, everything became more transparent and professional. We know the government is there to take care of us,” he said.
Sample this. In the present Olympic cycle — from 2021 to 2024 — the government has spent over Rs 400 crore on the athletes. Exposure trips, personal trainers, physios, sparring partners...
Agrees Calcutta-based Olympian shooter Joydeep Karmakar. “There has definitely been a huge shift in attitude. I do not know about other sports, but in shooting, I can vouch for it. First was the appointment (to the sports ministry) of Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and then the good work was taken to a higher level by Kiren Rijuju. Also the Khelo India project — inaugurated by Narendra Modi in January 2018 — is probably the best thing to happen to Indian sports. Of the 21 shooters, I think more than 50 per cent of the Olympic-bound has come through Khelo India.”
And while you are cheering, remember this is the same government that did not give the protesting wrestlers the time of the day. The likes of Vinesh Phogat and Rio Olympic Games medallist Sakshi Malik were made to look like villains when they protested against the BJP strongman and former Wrestling Association of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.
Phogat and four others are currently training to bring home Parisian medals, but only one male wrestler has qualified for the 2024 Games.
What also sticks out like a sore thumb is India’s continuing failure to reach a double-figure medal tally. India’s best show was in Tokyo 2020 when they won seven medals including a gold by javelin champion Neeraj Chopra. Says Karmakar, “That’s the problem. Even after so many years, our discussions still centre around ‘if we win 10 or more medals’. Smaller nations are doing remarkably well. Yes, we are improving no doubt. But if we think that other nations are stagnating it will be like living in a fool’s world.”
In the meantime, the politics continues.
