JO-2020: when sport serves as a megaphone and does not want to be silent

Fifty-three years after the black-gloved fists raised by Tommie Smith and John Carlos on the podium of the 200m of the Olympic Games in Mexico, athletes have found their voice and will not leave their activism at the gates of the stadiums of the Olympic Games in Tokyo .

Fifty-three years after the black-gloved fists raised by Tommie Smith and John Carlos on the podium of the 200m of the Olympic Games in Mexico, athletes have found their voice and will not leave their activism at the gates of the stadiums of the Olympic Games in Tokyo .

Gwen Berry does not have the reputation of LeBron James, Megan Rapinoe and other stars of American sport who no longer hesitate to intervene in the political field, but the hammer thrower has already warned that she would use the Tokyo Olympics to make his voice heard.

« When I am (in Tokyo) I will decide what to do, I need to speak on behalf of my community, to represent it, to help it, because it is much more important than sport » , warned the black athlete last month.

In Eugene, during the « trials » where she won her qualification for Tokyo, Berry, 32, had conspicuously turned his back on the American flag when the US anthem resounded during the medal ceremony.

In 2019, during the Pan American Games in Lima, she imitated Tommie Smith and John Carlos by raising her fist after her title to denounce the inequalities and injustices affecting the black community in the United States.

This gesture had greatly displeased at the time the American Olympic Committee which, in the process, had threatened its athletes with sanctions.

– The George Floyd Affair –

But everything changed in 2020 with the George Floyd affair when the world discovered on May 25 the images of the unbearable ordeal of this African-American suffocated by a police officer, lasting 8 minutes and 46 seconds, during his arrest in Minneapolis. , and died an hour later in hospital.

LeBron James (c) knee to the ground against police violence against blacks and t-shirt encouraging people to vote, during a game with the Lakers against Denver, on September 22, 2020 in Buena Vista, Florida

Mike Ehrmann – GETTY IMAGES / AFP / Archives

The superstar LeBron James was one of the first to express his anger, quickly joined by other players in the NBA and other sports sensitized since 2016 to these questions by Colin Kaepernick: this American football player had started a movement boycott of the American anthem by kneeling down to protest against police violence against blacks.

The movement of 2020, unprecedented in the United States with in particular a strike in the NBA and campaigns financed by sportsmen and professional leagues to encourage black voters to vote, weighed in the election of Joe Biden to the White House .

And the American Olympic Committee drew the consequences: it assured ahead of the Olympics that none of its athletes would be penalized if they decided to kneel before a competition or to send a message.

– Rule 50 –

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has long taken refuge behind rule 50.2 of its Olympic Charter to exclude the politics of Olympic stadiums: « No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is allowed in a place, site or other Olympic site « , states this text.

But on July 2, the IOC announced that athletes will now be able to express themselves on political or societal issues when addressing the media, before and after their competition, during team meetings or on social networks. .

This freedom of expression is regulated and sanctions are possible: « Any behavior and / or any expression of opinion which constitutes or is the sign of an act of discrimination, hatred, hostility or potential violence, for any ground whatsoever, is contrary to the fundamental principles of Olympism. « 

The Global Athlete association, which defends the freedom of expression of athletes, believes that the IOC’s position remains unclear on the issue, but does not believe that the body will sanction an athlete who kneels or throws a fist on a podium. .

« In terms of image, that would be enormously negative », explains to AFP its director Rob Koehler, before underlining the contradictions of the IOC.

“The IOC is not a politically neutral body. How can the IOC expect athletes to behave differently from it?” He emphasizes.

By Rob WOOLLARD / Los Angeles (AFP) / © 2021 AFP