The Winter Olympics: Sochi 2014

The Sochi Olympics: Do politics prevail over sport?

 “This isn’t about politics. This is about sport.”  A presenter at the Russian state owned continuous news channel, (RT) pointed out in response to the absence of politicians such as Obama to the Winter Olympics, celebrated in Russia during February.

This is not quite right. The Olympics Games, nowadays, are (un)fortunately political biased.  

 

Holding the Games it is a huge investment; however this could be worthy when your country is in the world’s eyes for two entire weeks. Sochi 2014 is just an opportunity to show Russia as great country, and Putin as a great leader. This is what Russia might have thought. As it happened in 1992, Spain was set to be just the legacy of an endless dictatorship. Nevertheless, holding the Olympics, Barcelona ‘ 92, was like a face wash for the country. Spain opened its doors to the world, which was the key point of the subsequently enormously increasing of tourism.

 The Winter Olympics, held in Sochi has been tainted by the political problems, particularly corruption scandals. These could be the most polemical and expensive Olympics in the history.

According to International Business Times, Russia has spent over £31bn in order to be ‘great’ enough to hold the Olympics. The record amount of costs was due to the unexpected expenses on Sochi’s flagship projects.  Laura Biathlon and Ski Complex were originally estimated to cost over £ 300m but its actual cost was nearly a billion pounds.

Moreover, Bloomberg Businessweek programme reported that 14% of the total expenses were managed by Putin’s close friends. Previously, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation alleged that two contractors, responsible of the construction of the Fisht Olympic stadium, were submitting false costs. Putin denied that this case could be possible related to corruption.

However, what has caused more reaction within the western society is the new anti-homosexual law, imposed by Russian government last summer.                                                     On June 30, 2013 The Guardian reported “Putin has signed into a law that stigmatises gay people and bans giving children information about homosexuality.” This law states that fines can be imposed to anyone who provides information about gay, lesbian or transgender to children, or anyone who attends to a homosexuality raid.

President Putin in his interview for the BBC stated that Anti-gay law does not harm anyone. He added: “There is no social or professional discrimination against gays in the country.”  Al Jazeera reported that at least 14 gay activists have been arrested on the opening day of the Olympics. The activists were demonstrated with rainbow flags – a symbol of the gay rights movement at the Red Square, Moscow.

The western society didn’t stay immobile to this anti-gay law and society has showed its discord through social media.  Hashtags such as #gay #cheerssochi have invaded the internet as a way of protest.  The media has also joined this protest. Google created a doodle, homepage icon, which showed illustrations of different winter sports with the rainbow flag as background.  In the print media, The Guardian or The Huffington Post showed their disagreement.

US had a serious response to Russia’s anti-gay law. Multinationals denied the support to Russia by ceasing its sponsorship to the Games. Moreover, US President Barack Obama confirmed he was not going to attend to the Winter Olympics, even though he admitted that Russia is safe place to stay for Americans.  Instead Obama sent two gay athletes to represent US.

The tangible tension between the two powers, faced In the Cold War, has dropped thanks to the Olympic Spirit, which requires friendship,  solidarity and fair play.