The International Olympic Committee is banning athletes from making political gestures at the 2020 Games in Tokyo, and one US hammer thrower says it's a 'form of control'
- The International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued new guidelines for the 2020 Games in Tokyo on Thursday that ban athletes from making political, religious, and ethnic demonstrations.
- The committee said examples of demonstrations include taking a knee during a national anthem, displaying political messages, and refusing to respect fellow medalists.
- The rule bans athletes from making such demonstrations on fields of play, during ceremonies, and in the Olympic Village, but said athletes could express their views in interviews and on social media.
- The IOC said it would discipline athletes on a case-by-case basis if they violate the new rules.
- US hammer thrower Gwen Berry, who was put on probation for 12 months after raising her fist on the podium at the Pan American Games last year, criticized the new rules in a comment to Insider.
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The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is banning political, religious, and ethnic demonstrations from medal ceremonies at the 2020 Tokyo Games.
New guidelines issued on Thursday prohibit athletes from taking a knee during a national anthem, making political hand gestures, displaying political messages, and refusing to respect fellow medalists.
The IOC said they would discipline athletes who fail to follow the guidelines would on a case-by-case basis. The IOC would not go into detail as to what kind of discipline a person could face in a request for comment from Insider.
More recently, US hammer thrower Gwen Berry raised her fist after winning gold at the 2019 Pan American Games in Peru, while American gold medalist fencer Race Imboden took a knee during another Pan Am award ceremony. Berry, a 2016 Olympian who, along with Imboden, was put on probation for 12 months following their demonstrations, criticized the new guidelines in an interview with Insider, saying the IOC is "silencing" athletes.
US hammer thrower and 2016 Olympian Gwen Berry called the new rule a 'form of control'
"I do understand why the IOC put this rule in place because they are trying to keep sports sports ... People tune in to watch athletes compete against different athletes from different countries," Berry said. "However, I do feel like it is a form of control because if athletes aren't free to express themselves at any level, it is silencing them."
If Berry qualifies for the 2020 Olympics, she could face disciplinary action if she raises her fist again. But she told Insider she doesn't regret doing it at the Pan Am Games.
"I felt emotional. I felt proud," she said. "I feel like I did something to show where I stand, to show I am for the people who have no voice. I am for the people who are forgotten. I am for the people who are unjustly treated in any country, any community. I am for those people."
In its new guidelines, the IOC says that expressing views is different than protesting and urged athletes not to be silent on "issues you care deeply about."
The IOC said it wants the Olympics to send a 'uniquely positive' message to an 'increasingly divided world'
But as a whole, the IOC said they want to keep the Olympics "uniquely positive" and free from politics.
"We believe that the example we set by competing with the world's best while living in harmony in the Olympic Village is a uniquely positive message to send to an increasingly divided world," the IOC said in a statement detailing the guidelines. "This is why it is important, on both a personal and a global level, that we keep the venues, the Olympic Village and the podium neutral and free from any form of political, religious, or ethnic demonstrations."
IOC President Thomas Bach stood by the new guidelines on Friday, saying that the Olympics "are not and must never be a platform to advance political or any other divisive ends."
"Our political neutrality is undermined whenever organizations or individuals attempt to use the Olympic Games as a stage for their own agendas, as legitimate as they may be," he said to an audience in Lausanne, Switzerland, according to the Associated Press.
Despite Bach's comment, boycotts and protests have had a role in the Olympics for many decades.
Dozens of countries threatened to boycott the 1936 Games in Nazi Germany. In the end, 49 countries attended.
In 1948, Germany and Japan were banned from taking place in the London Olympics, the first Games after World War II.
In 1956, Egypt, Lebanon, and Iraq boycotted the Melbourne Olympic Games to protest Israel's invasion of the Sinai Peninsula. The Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland also pulled out of the 1956 Games after the Soviet army invaded Budapest, Hungary, just weeks before the opening ceremony.
Smith and Carlos's protest came in the 1968 Games in Mexico City. They raised their fists during the men's 200-meter award ceremony in protest of the treatment of black people in the US.
At the 1976 Olympic Games, nearly two dozen countries, mainly from Africa, boycotted when the IOC refused to ban New Zealand over its apartheid policies.
"Politics have been a part of the Olympics for as long as I can remember," Berry told Insider. "If you think about all of the Olympic Games where politics infiltrated, you could take it back to 1936, 1948, 1956. There's always been some type of political influence in the Olympic Games."
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