I suggest nationalities be removed from formal olympics - ie no national anthems, team uniforms, flags. - Illustrative point - only three athletes can compete from a country - why? is it not possible that the 4th Kenyan steeplechaser, the 4th US sprinter not be the best - is it about finding the greatest athletes or waging wars without bloodshed.
2006-06-12 00:35:46 · 5 answers · asked by dust 2 in Sports ➔ Olympics
Hm, difficult one. I don't like nationalist symbols myself and I would never ever wave my own country's flag around. I do get you drift, but still - when it comes to the Olympics I don't really think that it is meant as a non-bloody war disguised as sports competition. Unfortunately we are always categorized - and language or nationality is one of the firdst categories that come to mind. So even if you leave out all the flags and teams and anthems, you will probably find people categorizing by gender or - much worse - by race. That's the way the human mind works - we like to analyse and categorise.
However, you are mentioning a good point there with the restricted numbers of athletes per country. Again, realistically though, if numbers were not restricted, I guess the rich countries would be more likely to send athletes and win at international competition than smaller and less wealthy countries.
So, I think nationalities were not a problem if the viewers of such events were actually less nationalist themselves...
2006-06-12 00:53:31 · answer #1 · answered by hystoriker 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋
The original Olympic games were a competition between between Greek city states in honour of their gods. Greece was not a unified whole and these states spend most of their time competing with each other is bloody conflicts over land and resources. The Games were the one occasion where these states came together in the spirit of peace. In fact athletes from 'Enemy' states were aloud to pass through territories unharmed in order to compete in the games. It was in a sense war without bloodshed but for the glory of the city and its Patron gods. The fact that today a particular field is dominated by one country should be of no consequence, it would have been exactly the same scenario centuries ago with the wealthier states such as Athens being able to dominate the Games.
If all nationalities were removed from the games what then would be the point? limiting each country to three competitors would not eliminate their successful monopoly. The three Kenyan athletes would win if they wore green or not.
Who ever said the Olympics were about finding the best Athletes, they were a competion to gain honour for one's city and God.
2006-06-12 09:04:24 · answer #2 · answered by Mimi 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I appreciate your sentiment, but the Olympics are very much about NATIONALISM, even though many would like it not to be. Your comments has been echoed for years, but because of many reasons (money and politics being chief among them), that not likely to happen.
2006-06-12 16:58:16 · answer #3 · answered by chairman_of_the_bored_04 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
YES, YES and a hundred times YES
It's all about to praise:
1.U.S.
2.Russia
3.Germany
4.Irelevant....(France, Australia, China, Great Britain...)
2006-06-12 07:39:59 · answer #4 · answered by rakovica.blinks 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
yeah they are!!
2006-06-12 20:10:05 · answer #5 · answered by noelleblum 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋