(KXAN) — The postponed 2020 Summer Olympics are just 80 days away from taking place in Tokyo against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic. It will be an Olympics unlike any other — with no international fans.
Athletes will have to pass a battery of nasal COVID-19 tests and are just one positive result away from ruining years of hard work and training.
Millions of eyes will be on the Games all over the world. It’s a tremendous stage — both for athletic triumph and possibly social change. Who can forget this image of Americans Tommie Smith and John Carlos with fists raised during the 1968 Olympic Games to protest racism.
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But the Olympics continue to ban athlete protests and could punish athletes who choose to protest anyway. That means raising a fist or kneeling during the national anthem as many professional U.S. athletes have done over the past year risks punishment.
Those athletes could even be sent home.
IOC bans ‘Black Lives Matter’ gear
The International Olympic Committee got very granular with what is not allowed. It said specifically that the slogan “Black Lives Matter” will be banned from athlete apparel at the Summer Olympics.
It’s part of the IOC’s long-standing ban on “demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda” on the playing field, the medal stand or during the Games’ official ceremonies.
More generic words like “peace,” “respect,” “solidarity,” “inclusion” and “equality” will be allowed on T-shirts.
So far, the IOC has not said what types of punishment athletes could face for violating these rules. It only said it would treat each violation on a case-by-case basis.
IOC says majority of athletes support ban on protests
The IOC athletes’ commission cited support to uphold Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter from more than two-thirds of about 3,500 replies from consulting athlete groups. The IOC said 70% of athletes polled do not think it’s appropriate to demonstrate during competition, and 67% said it’s not appropriate either on the medal stand.
Athletes breaching Rule 50 can be sanctioned by three bodies: the IOC, their sport’s governing body, and their national Olympic committee (NOC).
The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee pledged in December not to sanction athletes for peacefully protesting at the Olympic trials.
Many governing bodies for different Olympic sports also have said they would not punish athletes for protesting, including World Athletics, the global governing body for track and field.
Nonprofits step up to support athletes, push to reform ‘Rule 50’
Many groups have promised legal support for athletes who protest. The World Players Association union said the IOC’s decision was a move it expected.
“Any athlete sanctioned at the Tokyo Olympics will have the full backing of the World Players,” said Brendan Schwab, the union’s executive director.
And the group Global Athlete also issued a statement, encouraging athletes to “not allow outdated ‘sports rules’ to supersede your basic human rights.”
Noah Hoffman is heavily involved with Global Athlete. He’s a two-time Olympian, having competed in snow skiing in both Sochi in 2014 and PyeongChang in 2018 using top apparel like these snowboard helmets. Though he thoroughly enjoyed both of his Olympic experiences, he told Nexstar’s Andrew Marden that he strongly believes that it is time to “elevate the voice of the international athlete.”
“We envision an Olympics where the athletes are the center of the show, more than the host country or the politics around it or the sponsors,” Hoffman said. “It is this huge spectacle where the athletes are an afterthought.”
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
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ALL Sports should be free of all Politics, religions and Prejudices.
Sports use to be just a competition against an sporting ability.
But now the dishonorable, unethical, immoral Democrats have infected sports with their Hate and racism.
The Democrat Party slogan: “Rule and Ruin”.
Another democrat slogan is:
Make America Mediocre Again MAMA
Don’t forget MABA. MAKE america Bankrupt again!
Many black athletes won’t have the integrity to leave their Black LIES Matter propaganda behind or won’t direct it to Africa where blacks are slaughtering each other. Those millions of black African lives killed by other blacks don’t matter just like the thousands of black on black murders per year in the US.
What’s ironic is that globally it’s whites who are a minority, outnumbered by blacks and other races. As the underdog, they should be the ones pumping their fists when they overcome the overwhelming numerical advantage of non-whites.
I wholeheartedly support the IOC’s ban on all types of protest. I am especially pleased that they have prohibited Black Lives Matter apparel as this so-called social justice movement is a growing cancer in our society. The leadership of this disreputable gang have absolutely no interest in the lives of Black people, except for those times when it suits their selfish agendas.
Well said.
Now lets see if they have the BALLS to back up their threats of punishments, on those who break these rules.
I agree whole heartedly with you. I also think BLM should be renamed BLSM. Black Lives Sometimes Matter. Seems they only matter when it involves a white person and can further thier political agenda. If MLB was real they would be in all the areas where black lives are being taken by other blacks on a daily basis. ALM All lives matter.
AND ONLY when those black lives were taken by WHITE cops.. CAUSE THEY WERE CRIMINALS…
I bet this policy decision was made more for the benefit of China than anything. If the door is open for BLM protesting, the door will be opened for protesting China over the Xinjiang situation, which China certainly doesn’t want spilling over to next year for the Beijing winter Olympics.
I am amazed by the power China wields internationally. I remember when I was in college >30 years ago, many were predicting China would be a world power in 30 years. I visited China for the first time in 1985. I just couldn’t imagine it, but it happened. But even so, the standard of living in China is still far from the West’s.
Pity they were EVER allowed on the global stage..
Let’s see what happens. The World Olympics has been used time and again despite rules and regulations to express personal and sometimes national outrage. BLM don’t appear to care about rules or personal property so pointing out Olympic regulations might not carry any weight.
And you can bet BLM will be using the FULL WEIGHT of their cancel culture mob, to BULLY anyone who DOES try to enforce these rules… Even going so far as to riot outside the homes of those on the commission.
And it is sad that we need to have to deal with this ****, BUT, I think Japan has done the right thing, suppression of speech is never good, however suppression of inflammatory propaganda, is not a bad thing, the rest of the world does not need to be subjected to black lies BS. With that said, free speech is important and MUST be maintained, a political agenda at a sporting event is not the place. Black lies matter is an admitted marxist organization, starting from their very name, the entire cult is a lie, the world does not need to be exposed. IF black lies matter gave a damn about black lives they would care for ALL black lives, not just the ones that were unfortunately killed by a law enforcement. Until there is an active and permanent chapter, in Chicago fighting for 100s of dead blacks a month, killed by OTHER BLACKS, until millionaire athletes stop whining about oppression stop making more millions schilling for garment corporations whose products are made in countries that use child and slave labor and until such time as black lies matter directors stop buying multiple houses around the world, I will not believe, that they give a damn about anything other than political gamesmanship. If you want to see viewership of the Olympics go the way of the nfl, by all means go ahead and let them spread their propaganda.
It would be interesting to see HOW THE ratings of this olympics compares to PRIOR ones…
One knee or One fist and I’ll turn off the tv. I’m want to watch a sport event not a Political Event
Yes. Way to go intelligent International Olympic Committee members. Thank you.
I wouldn’t go so far as to call them “intelligent.” This is the same body that was considering VIDEO GAMING as an Olympic sport.
It’s about as much a “Sport” as table tennis, Syncronized diving/swimming is..
This is great, but I have my doubts it will stick. We will see just how much juice the leftist/socialist movement in the United States has over the next few months. They will be trying every trick in the democrat book to change this decision. I do find it interesting that the international community seems to have more insight into the type of despicable organization BLM is than our own government leaders and media.
Bet that if someone shows up “anywhere” with a slogan other than blm, that person will be considered a racist and be harmed not only mentally but physically too.
No I don’t think so in Japan. They run an orderly country, unlike us!
I at one time supported 4 different USA olympic events, it’s down to 2, Olympic Shooting and USA Olympic Archery, the others had athletes that protested. so I doubled my donations to the ones that didn’t. Since the US government doesn’t support our olympic hopefuls, the answer is ” GO WOKE GO BROKE”!
“More generic words like “peace,” “respect,” “solidarity,” “inclusion” and “equality” will be allowed on T-shirts”. Good for the IOC for banning blm, but they are still woke with regard to “inclusion” and “equality”. We Conservatives cannot escape the avalanche of the “wokeness bull”.
I wonder, would they let in a shirt that said “USA is the greatest”? Or a shirt that said “Support the blue”?
America could do better than sending blacks and trannies to represent us in the Olympics. It’s a disgrace.
I certainly HOPE THEY are not sending trannies this year.
The Olympic Committee is doing what the sorts leagues in the U. S. should have done at the beginning of this nonsense. The spectators came to see or watch on television the sports activity not to subjected to extraneous political or social ‘messaging that would be more effective elsewhere. The fans were not amused but like good oparatcheks the leagues folded to the vocal minority and even sanctioned unacceptable behavior.
And the group Global Athlete also issued a statement, encouraging athletes to “not allow outdated ‘sports rules’ to supersede your basic human rights.”
“Outdated sports rules?” Just because you jerks say they are?
Who the h— died and left these ‘woke’ lamebrains in charge? More to the point, why are so many weaklings doing what these lamebrains tell them to?
THEIR idea of “outdated” means “WE didn’t dictate to them what the policy should be, therefore it must be outdated”.
People were quite upset 53 years ago with the Black Panther salute BS at the Olympics but now it seems all are either “woke” or numb to all the propaganda from the Left.
They should ban any athlete who breaks any rule the Olympics is not now nor has it ever been about politics except for pride in their countries. They forgot this about showing good sportsmanship and competion they have made sure there has never been demostartions for a reason this is how we get every country in the world to agree to come for a friendly sportsmanship all the **** is suppose to be left out. BLM matter is **** compared to the dozens of countries with human civil rights abuse. The whole point is for a few days we forget about all our problems not just here in America but world wide. People get to tune and and cheer for the people from their country the last thing they need is for opinions from people they did not ask for their opinons. I tuned out of the MLB, NBA etc.. Those are suppose to be a couple hours were i can get away from the **** of everyday life. Note: fact you have better odds of get hit by lighting or winning the lottery tehn being shot by a cop. You want to protect black lives hire 3 times more police to stop the gang violence. Gang violence in one week is some cities killed more black men in “1” week then the police have in 50 to 100 years !
BOTH OF which are foreign concepts to leftists..
Finally, an organization not going along with the liberal hate machine. BLM does not belong in the olympics except as individual athletes — not the racist communist organization. What don’t Democrats and liberals all over the world leave sports alone?????? Friendly competition used to be the norm — let it be again.
Good for them! Now all they need to do is not allow transgenders to compete in women’s Olympics! If trans want to compete they need to compete with other trans, just like Special Olympians will only compete with other Special Olympians.
Here’s an idea – compete in your sport, accept your win or defeat and go home. I’m not tuning in to the Olympics to see whether you support BLM or any other protest.