Olympic has always been about country and its medal counts. If it’s about best player to win, then they need to change the qualification rules for the sports.
Has war ever been about prestige ?
> The first Crusaders had a variety of motivations, including religious salvation, satisfying feudal obligations, opportunities for renown, and economic or political advantage.
"prestige" could be close to "renown", but it comes from a different place (renown brings direct advantages, including nobility attribution for instance), and you'll note economic and political advantage are set as anchors of this list.
The reality of it is about conquering territory under a pretense that won't raise hostility among your neighbors (who can even participate in the expeditions under the same religious flag)
> Trojan war
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_War
> Many scholars believe that there is a historical core to the tale, though this may simply mean that the Homeric stories are a fusion of various tales of sieges and expeditions by Mycenaean Greeks during the Bronze Age.
> WWII
> proved more important than the economic motives
Could I ask for more details on your understanding of it as "proved" ?
The Olympics is supposed to be a celebration of excellence in sport, not how to best game the system. It would be one thing to simply forfeit the match but to have to pretend to play well with the ultimately goal of losing is simply disgusting and such behaviour should absolutely be banned.
- the IOC, the hosting country, and the sponsors probably want the spectators to think that the games are about celebration of (personal) excellence, so they say forfeiting outright is bad sportsmanship; also, athletes putting up a fight is more exciting and sells more tickets.
- at the same time, watching the medal count ranking is exciting; at least in the case of China, I believe that most people expect the national team *as a whole* to do everything they can to fetch more medals; for some people, the ability of the coach to strategize is part of the show;
- the individual athlete of course wants a gold for themself if possible, but they also kinda have to keep in mind the hopes of the people, which is "more medals *for the country*";
And so, given the above factors, we have this weird situation where the IOC says you shouldn't forfeit, but could "turn a blind eye" if you can put up a convincing show of a fight. I'm just hypothesizing how this happens. And I'm not making any conclusion about whether this whole thing is ethical. I'm just laying out the forces at work.
It is still somewhat unlike pro-wrestling because the national teams are really competing against each other. Within each national team, however, it may be a different story.
https://olympics.com/ioc/integrity/prevention-competition-ma...
Doping and other forms of competition manipulation are obviously wrong as well, no argument there.
Keeping in mind that the scandal was known since at least as early as 2007 (according to the link pasted on another comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32670518), the IOC should have had plenty of time to investigate, if they wanted to. If I understand correctly, the IOC has not (yet) stripped any of the involved athletes of their medals, nor taken any other disciplinary action against individual athletes or the national team. This suggests that either the competition manipulation rules were not in place (in which case the Chinese team would have been still operating within the rules, strictly speaking), or the IOC didn't mean to really enforce such rules, possibly due to consideration for other interests.
I'll also add that, from the perspective of the Chinese government, athletes in the national team are basically in the service of the country because the country is usually paying for all the training, equipment, etc., and so personal sacrifices are expected. This is something any athlete joining the national team is expected to understand. Put another way, if an athlete does not agree with that, they are not supposed to join the national team to begin with. So in the eyes of some people, Ye simply didn't expect she would actually need to make that sacrifice, and got bitter about it.
For China, every sport in the Olympics is a team sport, even the ones that are not explicitly described as such. While showing sportsmanship is kinda/sorta important, it is even more unethical to not do everything in one's power to respond to the hopes and expectations of the government (who provided the funding) and of the Chinese people - namely, medal count ranking. So if there is something that can be done as a team and that is not explicitly forbidden by the rules, you can bet that the Chinese team will do it even if it seems unethical to you. This should not surprise you when you consider the communist/socialist ideology, where individualism is frowned upon. In fact, they'll probably think that national teams who don't do it are being stupid.
A big one is that the Olympics need to keep appealing to viewers around the world. They need to stay relevant with the audience, so that they can keep getting both corporate and government money, and also wield political influence.
Stoking nationalist fervours around the world is definitely part of that appeal. But not the only one.
This whole patriotism thing in sports seems silly. Two highly trained and motivated people are playing, let the better person win the match. Why does it have to be so hard?
Maybe it is time to stop playing national anthem and play the winner’s favorite song instead. Wave a white flag instead of the national flag.
I think players should be not allowed to disclose their nationalities in the Olympics
By and large, people still prefer watching the FIFA World Cup which is organised along national lines.
Similar for many other sports. Eg many major tennis events are typically not run along national lines; but viewers still care about nationality of the participants.
How do you justify this statement, or the premise? In the modern day, homicide kills many times more people than conflict between nations. In the USA at least, local identity is the primary driver of gang violence.
It seems you're attempting to suggest that local sports are less harmless than the Olympics, by somehow equating the latter to an increased risk of apocalyptic nuclear war?
Please provide evidence if you're going to make such an outlandish claim. One could just as easily claim (similarly without evidence) that the Olympics actually reduces the tension between nations and reduces the risk of apocalyptic tail events compared to local sports which provide no such relief of international tensions.
Tell me you've never been to a Rangers game without telling me you've never been to a Rangers game!
Perhaps you should discuss this idea with some former/aspiring/current olympians. Overwhelmingly they consider it a great honor and one of the most memorable, rewarding events of their life to represent their country. Shockingly, even in countries which aren't like China where the athletes are essentially forced to say these things.