The review of magazines. Paris is preparing to host the Summer Olympic Games and France hopes to remind the world what place it intends to occupy in it. Because sport is not just a clash between athletes, but also between powers, this is what the most recent issue of the geography review highlights. Herodotus. Geopolitics of Olympism (La Découverte, number 192, 160 pages, 24 euros).
The opening ceremony on July 26, which will take place on the Seine, will be a grandiose spectacle with which Paris intends to shine: 110 boats will transport the sports delegations during a popular festival in front of some of the City’s most beautiful monuments Light. With this event, the national capital “establishes itself as a global city with a prestigious past and which, by daring to innovate, shows its logistical and organizational capabilities”estimates in her editorial the director ofHerodotus, Beatrice Giblin. The hope is to do better than London, “old rival of Paris”where the 2012 Olympiad was launched with a remarkable opening ceremony.
The role of multinationals
But the real geopolitical issue lies in the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes in the Olympics under the banner of their countries. Following the invasion of Ukraine, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) banned their federations from all international competition. Slow work for their reintegration is underway. However, faced with the Ukrainian threat to boycott the Games, “the IOC, promoter of peace through sport, and France, country of human rights, will find it difficult not to take sides” of kyiv, notes Béatrice Giblin.
This battle is a new illustration of the division of the world, under pressure from hostile powers, such as Russia. Honorary professor at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland), Jean-Loup Chappelet recalls this in the conclusion of his article on the governance of sport: Moscow wants to support the launch of Parallel Games, organized by the BRICS (a grouping of ten countries formed, originally from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) or the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Russian President Vladimir Putin makes no secret of his desire to “replace the global sports system (dominated by the IOC) with another”, precise Jean-Loup Chappelet.
This project comes at a time when the history of sports governance has been marked since the beginning of the 20th century.e century by numerous cases of corruption within certain international sports federations, notably those of football, volleyball and athletics. The federations, which were able to compete with the IOC to lead world sport, came out weakened. Today, other forces are perhaps called upon to play a more important role: multinationals, but also athletes, who are still “indirectly represented”. This is perhaps the only reason for hope in this geopolitics of sport.
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