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it is more difficult to find a convincing answer. An even harder question is knowing
just how much the IOC would want to adopt such measures which might isolate
it from certain sporting superpowers. Would not such an attitude risk leading
the Olympic Movement into the doldrums? The question is to know not what objective
one is striving to achieve in theory, but what one might lose by trying to
apply it in practice.
In the course of the Olympic Movements development, the IOC has often
found itself faced with cases of "discrimination". The term itself can be interpreted
in many ways.
Rule 3, paragraph 2 of the Olympic Charter states that "Any form of discrimination
with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics,
sex, or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement".
It therefore remains to be seen what might constitute "discrimination" other
than of a racial, political, religious or sexual nature.
It should nonetheless be noted that, until the end of the 1980s, the Charter
contained an extremely out-of-date rule: rule 28, which "allowed" women to compete
in the Olympic Games "according to the rules of the IFs concerned and after
the approval of the IOC"!!! This article has been deleted from the new Charter, and
the word "sex" added to the list of types of discrimination which the IOC fights.
We are well aware of the complaint made against the IOC and the Los Angeles organizing
committee for not including a womens 5,000m or 10,000 metres race in
the programme of the Games. The judgement referred to the legal basis of the
IOC and found in its favour, while avoiding answering the issue of discrimination
against women, arguing that no "intent" to discriminate could be "proved". It accepted
that the Olympic Games were organized in accordance with an agreement
accepted world-wide, and that, as a result, it was not possible to change it.
While we can see that the IOC made mistakes, due particularly to the general
social view, which is not acceptable, in another area, that of racial discrimination,
the IOC has made progress, taking radical measures with a view to ensuring equality
among the participants at the Olympic Games.
Several people have accused the IOC of having led the Olympic Movement
along the dangerous road of political opportunism, assuming a role that is not its
own in an effort to get certain countries to respect equality within the sports society
by imposing an Olympic Games embargo on them. These accusations are
unfounded. Pursuant to paragraph 4 of Rule 2, the IOC "acts against any form of
discrimination affecting the Olympic Movement".
As it happens, the IOC used the only weapon at its disposal to put pressure on
countries which pursued a policy of race discrimination (apartheid) in their sporting
community. In this way, the Olympic Movement became less political and
more human, concerning itself with human rights. In spite of the clearness of rule
2 of the Charter, this provision should be elucidated further, because there is often
the dilemma of complying with the customary rule of the Olympic Charter in
a rigid interpretation, or taking a freer approach.
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