Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons
This year, people from all over the world tuned in to root for the athletes representing their country at the 2024 Olympics. The Olympics give the opportunity to show viewers the best the sports world has to offer, and it is in the Olympics’ best interest to meet that opportunity by showing the strides they’ve made as an organization. At this year’s Olympics, we’ve seen some important improvements made towards equity…as well as some pretty significant setbacks.
In this blog, we’ll be examining the areas in which the Olympics have become more equitable and some setbacks that demonstrate a clear need for growth.
Setback: Steven van de Velde’s Participation
Before the games even began, Velde’s participation on the Dutch beach volleyball team was met with opposition. Years ago, Steven van de Velde knowingly intoxicated and raped a minor. According to the Olympics’ own “Athletes’ Rights and Responsibilities Declaration” (signed by all participating athletes at the games), being a role model is a part of their expectations to stay in competition. Critics have pointed out that his involvement stands in direct contradiction to that organizational standard and serves as a poor representation of his home country. His involvement adds insult to injury, as women who have committed lesser crimes and misbehaviors (like Sha’Carri Richardson’s marijuana usage or Ana Carolina Vieira sneaking out of the games) faced harsher retribution and were banned from the games altogether.
All too often in sports and entertainment, we see larger organizations overlook abuses committed by perpetrators in the interest of profit. For those directly victimized by the perpetrators, and those in the audience with a history of similar abuse, they can see the continued public platforming of these figures as a refusal to acknowledge the severity of abuse or a diminishing of a victim’s inherent value as a human being. Therefore, it should be an obligation for organizations to have open dialogue with their audience to address such decision-making, and how those decisions reflect their values. For every organization, there should be no ambiguity about the seriousness with which they consider instances of sexual abuse, particularly if that abuse is against a minor.
Simultaneously, organizations and the public must grapple with the questions of what it means to be accountable, and how to treat perpetrators when they make moves to take accountability. Velde served a prison sentence and extensive rehabilitation program while referring to the abuse as the “worst mistake of [his] life.” The latter actions do not erase the abuse, and these consequences in no way compare to the lifelong consequences victims of child sexual abuse face. However, it is up to all of us to consider what to do after a convicted abuser serves their punishment and expresses remorse for their actions, as they cannot be erased from public life altogether. Which areas of public life and privileges should they be permanently barred from and which should they be allowed conditional reentry? The difficulty of questions like this is that there is no universal map to accountability. No two abusers, or cases of abuse, are the same. Victims may seek different forms of accountability from their perpetrators. We hope that in future years, we will see organizations like the Olympics, gender-based violence prevention and education organizations, and the public join together to have more frequent conversations about what it means to hold perpetrators accountable and successfully reintegrate them in society while also being firm allies to all who are victims of sexual abuse.
Improvement: NBC’s Gender Equitable Broadcasting
It is no secret that, in the US, more men than women follow sports and less than a third of male and female sports-watchers tune in to women’s sports. The Olympics is a rare sporting event in that it showcases female athletes more prominently and draws in more female viewership. “NBC counts the Olympics as one of only two major sporting events that reliably attract more female than male viewers. The American Olympic audience is about 55 percent female and 45 percent male, an exact flip of the Super Bowl’s gender split,” per The Atlantic. This viewership trend is likely the reason why NBC committed to giving equal time to male and female athletes at this year’s games!  International Olympics Committee (IOC) member Nawal El Moutawakel said, “We know that there are prime global broadcasting times at each edition of the Olympic Games. We have adjusted the schedule accordingly to ensure that a gender-balanced number of medal events and total competition hours take place during those time slots.” This both sends a powerful message to young girls everywhere that their achievements are just as worthy of attention and brings us one step closer to a day where everyone can be engaged in sports regardless of the gender of its athletes.
Setback: Hijab Ban on the French Olympic Team
The French Olympic team banned Muslim athletes from competing while wearing hijabs or headscarves. Their rationale? The athletes competing for France are considered civil servants that must “adhere to the principles of secularism.” French Muslim sprinter Sounkamba Sylla took to social media to share that she was not allowed to participate in the opening ceremony while wearing a hijab and was only allowed in at the last minute by the French Sports Minister permitting her participation if she covered her hair in an unreligious manner. With the prominence of the far-right French National Rally party, Islamophobia was on the rise during this year’s French election. To issue these restrictions on a public-facing Muslim athlete during the world’s most popular sporting event only adds salt to the wound for French Muslims who faced such a difficult year in their country. For the Olympics to allow for such a ban to take place, let alone from the country hosting this year’s games, is not only immoral but also contradictory of its own anti-discrimination policy. The Olympics should emphasize to every participating country that the Games are a place where every athlete should be comfortable, confident, and able to live publicly as they are.
Improvement: Increased Focus on Gymnasts’ Mental Health at the Games
In our previous blog, we discussed how USA gymnast Simone Biles has experienced and spoken out against mistreatment while training under USA Gymnastics. While USA Gymnastics has a long way to go to address harms perpetuated at local gyms, they have made some strides at the national and international competition levels. At this year’s Olympics, the world got to meet USA Gymnastics’ first therapy dog. This helped inspire the presence of therapy dogs at the most recent Olympic trials in US swimming. USA Gymnastics has also been offering mindfulness sessions, pep talks and advice from former Olympians, and on-call mental health professionals and local doctors (provided to athletes due to the new mental health emergency plan). This commitment to good mental health on the Olympic stage is incredibly important to the welfare of athletes, and we look forward to seeing additional efforts at future games work to improve mental health across all sports.
Setback: Anti-Trans Hate Campaign Against Female Boxers
Anti-trans hate has been on the rise, and one common setting to address that hatred is in the world of sports. Anti-trans people will often use women’s sports as an opening to state that trans women do not belong in women’s spaces at all. As is the case with most forms of hate, it never just harms its primary target. For Algerian boxer Imane Khelif and Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting, both of whom are cisgender women, their eligibility to participate has been questioned and ridiculed because they don’t have bodies deemed “woman enough” by the detractors. They were cleared to participate by Olympic guidelines, but their hormone levels and secondary sex characteristics were nevertheless targets of scrutiny and vitriol during this year’s games. While the IOC did release a statement in response to this hate, it did not make any explicit commentary of how this stems from unacceptable anti-trans sentiment nor has their been any indication of support for these athletes behind the scenes in the face of such harassment. In the future, we hope to see more transparent conversation from the Olympics about treating trans athletes with dignity as well as how body diversity amongst women athletes is something to be celebrated.
Improvement: Games Have Reached Gender Parity
For the first time in Olympics history, the games have reached gender parity. There is an equal percentage of male and female athletes competing at the Olympics, which is a tremendous milestone. This equality is not only better for athletes, it’s better for the viewers at home too. It shows that people of all genders can reach incredible athletic feats equally worthy of attention and applause. This could be foundational in creating a future sports world that celebrates athletes of all genders in equal measure.
As an organization, it is clear that the Olympics have covered significant ground yet still have room to improve to achieving equity. At the next Olympics, we look forward to seeing strides made to give all athletes and viewers at home the most fair and positive experience possible.
RALIANCE is a trusted adviser for organizations committed to building cultures that are safe, equitable, and respectful. RALIANCE offers unparalleled expertise in serving survivors of sexual harassment, misconduct, and abuse which drives our mission to help organizations across sectors create inclusive environments for all. For more information, please visit www.RALIANCE.org.
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