If the International Olympic Committee truly believed in creating a better world, they would support athletes making political statements through clothing—not condemn them.
The Way Athletes Dress Is Changing. Can the Olympics Keep Up?
On July 25, the German field hockey player Nike Lorenz stepped onto the pitch at the Tokyo Olympics wearing what at first appeared to be standard-issue fare: a white tank top, a sports skirt, and a pair of shoes with rubberized soles for extra traction. But where her teammates wore knee-high white socks striped with the colors of the German flag, Lorenz’s was topped with a rainbow-colored band. It might have missed the eyes of most, but Lorenz’s subtle statement in support of LGBTQ+ rights was the result of weeks of speculation and hand-wringing by the International Olympics Committee (IOC), the organization that oversees the Games. Eventually, they decided to revise their infamous Rule 50 and grant Lorenz permission to wear it.
Even after Rule 50 was relaxed for this year’s Games—allowing athletes to engage in acts of political “expression” on the field before competing, if in terms that still felt wishy-washy—the IOC’s Olympic Charter has been the subject of intense scrutiny for its arcane and often frustratingly vague diktats for decades. First published in 1908, many of its rules are glaringly outdated. Even so, few have prompted the same heated debate as Rule 50, which reads: “No kind of demonstration or political, religious, or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues, or other areas.” In the run-up to this year’s Games, the conversations surrounding the rule grew especially heated, with the IOC releasing a statement in May saying that slogans including “Black Lives Matter” would not be permitted on athletes’ apparel, while words such as “peace,” “respect,” “solidarity,” “inclusion,” and “equality” would be.
Despite the long history of activism within competitive sports, it’s gained a bigger spotlight over the past few years—a shift that has arguably been most visible in the U.S. as social media has increased awareness around Black deaths at the hands of police and led to protests, boycotts, and a political firestorm around athletes taking the knee during the national anthem. Even at the Olympic Games, demonstrations are far from a novelty. One of the most powerful examples came at the 1968 Mexico Olympics when, in the wake of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination earlier that year, the winning American runners John Carlos and Tommie Smith raised glove-clad fists in the Black Power salute. (Before the IOC could even take action, the United States Olympic Committee, or USOC, suspended the athletes from the Games and sent them home within days.)
This story originally appeared on: Vogue - Author:Liam Hess
