London 2012 Olympic Games, is it fair play?

Olympics is intended to be where nations compete in a constructive way on a fair play basis to strengthen friendship and ties between them.

Point 1: I believe not all sports are widespread enough to be included in Olympic Games. Take BMX cycling as an example. It seems few countries have got the fields and equipment. This is while many sports well-spread worldwide have got no entry to the Games including martial arts such as Karate and Woosho, Lawn Hockey, Rugby or even Chess. In addition there are fields in the Olympic Games which are mostly based on artistic capabilities rather than physical education. Olympics don’t seem to be an appropriate scene for such competitions. Isn’t a festival better suited for arts?

Point 2: Weightlifting as a traditional symbol of rivalry is a popular measure of power which I think could stimulate sense of competing. This very popular sport, at least when it comes to nations and spectators, has got medals only for total of Snatch and Clean & Jerk weights while in world championships medals are distributed for both divisions plus the total. Actually the number of medals has been reduced to one third.

On the other hand is swimming. A great deal of medals is distributed there for many almost similar categories: 100 metres, 200 metres, 400 metres, 800 metres and so on including freestyle, butterfly, breaststroke, back crawl, relays, etc. Just imagine how many medals there for basically the same thing. An athlete could and is allowed to compete in many categories with relying basically on the same capability and skill. Now a country sends a team of a few athletes who are really good and deserve to win, however is it fair that the same few athletes compete in a variety of categories and the country gets lots of medals? To have a sense of the issue just compare medals won by Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps in Beijing 2008. Phelps got 8 gold medals while Bolt had the chance just to participate in two individual and one team relay division. Is this fair? Which one is more exceptional: Phelps or Bolt? This is while athletics is among the most widespread and the cheapest sports worldwide and could be practiced to some extent even by the poorest nations.

Point 3: Number of athletes from each nation is limited in some fields. Take Taekwondo for instance. Only two participants could come from every country. It is interesting to know that Taekwondo was added in the Olympics just a couple of rounds of the Games ago. It seems better strengthen such competitions by letting the number of athletes to increase.

Point 4: The problem of nationality or citizenship still persists, maybe in favour of a few countries. We are seeing that athletes change citizenship just to participate in the games and to win a position in their names, no matter what country it is for. Is this fair in a tournament where nations are intended to compete? I think this is against the original true soul of the Games. Take wrestling for example. It is seen that originally Russian wrestlers are on the list for many countries such as Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, even the US and Canada. Arthur Taymazov didn’t have the chance to be in the Russian team, so moved to compete for Uzbekistan. Pliev moved from Russia first to the US, then to Canada just a few years ago. The problem was not as common before. We have got used to see Qataris to essentially employ athletes from various nations to compete for them. The Azeri wrestling team is almost all comprised of foreigners, mostly Russians and even one Iranian.

I think this is not fair play. It is not fair between nations. Athletes can change clubs in a blink of an eye for sake of money but it is not fair when it comes to nations. I think this needs to be regulated. Of course rights for emigration and immigration should be respected for. But there should be some regulations in place to give some meaning to the competitions between nations. I mean one who represents a nation in such Games should have some sort of humane connection to the nation rather than money. This for instance could be done by defining some measures to prove where an athlete has got his/her capabilities and skills.

For the sake of reality and generally speaking I pointed out some issues here that I see as unfair and I expect them to be handled by the people involved, if we are to realize the ideal dream of “one world, one nation” one day.