Olympics 1968, Sports_&_Recreation, College Term Papers.com


		Data Bases
		• Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism?

		Links
		• Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com

		Free Essays
		• Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers

Search Lots of Essays

Back to Subjects - Sports & Recreation

Olympics 1968

Olympics 1968 Demonstrators and protesters vary from religious, environmental, social, civil, and political rights groups. They use the Olympic games to get their message or beliefs across to a larger viewing public. Some demonstrations and protests are quite peaceful, while others, are chaotic and often lead to violence. These individuals can be seen as early as the opening ceremonies and as late as the closing ceremonies of the Olympics. Many athletes also have demonstrated their support to some of these groups. Tommie Smith, John Carlos, Cathy Freeman, and Naim Suleymanoglu, just to name a few, are among the individuals who have exercised their beliefs in social, civil, and political rights of their people through their actions before, during, or even after their sporting events. These types of demonstrations offer the viewing public the informative events occurring around the world and should be continued throughout the years. These demonstrations will be a part of the games for a very long time because of the problems encountered in today’s society. The 1968 Olympic games held in Mexico City were among the most controversial games ever hosted. This was the time of high tensions of racism in the United States, which was escalated by the assassination of both, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, along with the Civil Rights Movement. According to Senn (1999,p.137), an American, Harry Edwards, called on black athletes to protest the general condition of blacks in the United States by refusing to compete under the American flag in the Olympic games. Edwards wanted black athletes to boycott the games, but at the end some athletes, including Tommie Smith and John Carlos, decided to participate in the Mexico games to make a statement in front of the whole world. They staged one of the most shocking and controversial sport to political act in the history of modern Olympics. Smith and Carlos, who finished first and third in the 200-meter run, bowed their heads, wearing black socks and black leather gloves, raised their fist in the Black power salute as the Star Spangled Banner played and the American flag was raised. Their actions were a protest against racism in the U.S. Later, Smith concluded that their actions were not of a Black power salute, but an Olympic project for human rights. He also stated that the Black-gloved fists represented African-American pride, and their black socks were a testament to poverty encountered by African-Americans during those times (Boogard, 2000,p. D1). The U.S. organizing committee immediately removed Smith and Carlos from the track and field team as a result of their protest. Smith and Carlos however took advantage of their day in the spotlight and made news around the world. They stood for something that is needed to be corrected, which was racism, and took a stand. Over the years, the tensions of racism slowly decreased in the U.S., as a result of one of the biggest nationwide protest ever seen. Naim Suleymanoglu, also known as “Pocket Hercules,” is another athlete who used the Olympic games to represent oppression among his countrymen. Naim grew up as part of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria, where he trained to be the most dominant weightlifter in his weight class for many years. He would have been a sure gold medallist during the 1984 Olympic games at Los Angeles, but Bulgaria was part of the Eastern Bloc boycott. When he returned to his training camp back at Sofia, Bulgaria, he found that Bulgarian authorities violently repressed Turkish demonstrations and banned Moslem holidays, burials, Turkish dress, and ordered the Turks to change their names to the Bulgarian equivalent. The following year, his passport was confiscated and was issued a new one, under the name of Naum Shalamanov. Later, he opened a newspaper indicating that he was proud of his new Bulgarian name. Naim finally decided to defect out of Bulgaria, leaving his family and friends, during the 1986 World Championship at Melbourne, Australia. After the competition, he hid at a friends’ house for 48 hours and turned himself in at a police station claiming amnesty. Several hours later, he was on his way to Turkey to begin his new life. Suleymanoglu was granted a waiver on the strict Olympic eligibility rules, after Turkey paid $1 million to Bulgaria in compensation (Agence France Presse, 2000). Naim went on to win Turkey’s first gold medal in 20 years at the 1988 Seoul Olympic games. He returned to Turkey as a hero. Shortly after returning to Turkey, his family followed and eventually 900,000 Turks were allowed to emigrate out of Bulgaria into Turkey, largely in part of the publicity and embarrassment created by the 4’11” Olympic giant towards the Bulgarian regime. Throughout the next few Olympic games and World Championships, Naim competed and won gold medals, except for the 2000 Olympic games, where he tried to win a fourth Olympic gold, but failed. According to Naim, “I feel despair due to the sorrow of the Turkish people because of my failure,” (Turkish Daily News 2000). The Turkish people did not consider him as a failure, but will be greatly remembered as the greatest weightlifter that ever lived, and most importantly, as the person who represented Turkish triumph over oppression. Cathy Freeman, an Aboriginal citizen of Australia, was another athlete that demonstrated her beliefs about the oppression of what her fellow Aborigines account for 2% of the country’s 19 million residents, and they are eerily invisible. They did not have any economic or political back up from the government; therefore most of them were unemployed, in poverty, in jail, and more prone to drug abuse. Their struggles in Australia were very much alike of the struggles experienced by African-American and Native Americans in the U.S. When European settlers came and conquered Australia many centuries ago, they bought diseases that killed many Aborigines and at the same time conquered their land with the use of force and power. According to Powell (2000, p. A76), from 1910 to 1970, the Australian government removed Aboriginal children from their homes in an experiment designed to integrate them into the white culture. These children were called the “stolen generation.” This experiment failed to achieve its goal and the Aborigines remained mostly repressed people. They were not allowed to vote or register for the census, until the 1960’s. Many treated them as if they were non-existent. Freeman created a controversy by carrying an Aboriginal flag during her victory laps at the 1994 Commonwealth Games, she was publicly rebuked by Australian track and field officials (Gloster, 2000). Freeman, like many other Aboriginal leaders, wanted the world to know how her people were being treated. According to Schaffer and Smith (2000, p.220), Aboriginal leaders have called for their people to boycott the games (during the 2000 Olympics) in protest against the stalled processes of reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. Freeman did not want to boycott because she wanted to stage a demonstration of Aboriginal suffering through the use of sport and the Olympic games. During the opening ceremonies in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Cathy Freeman ran the last of the torch relay to initiate opening ceremonies, and after winning the 400-meter run, carried the Aboriginal flag to represent her race and to bring the quest for world attention to their plight. The Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) did not punish athletes, such as Freeman, of carrying Aboriginal flags, because they were afraid of more controversies. Today, the country had taken steps to improve the situations among the Aboriginals. They plan to increase programs by improving the health and education of Aborigines. Freeman became her country’s hero, both on the track and as a frequent critic of Australia’s treatment of its native people. Many Aboriginals believed that this was a step in the continued improvement of their society, while others held that it was just another way of saying “sorry” for the injustices, without literally saying it to them. Many demonstrators and protestors gathered during the 2002 Winter Olympic games at Salt Lake City to bring attention to the money taxpayers spend in hosting the games. They believed that corporations and politicians promote the Olympics in a sea of ads and TV shows, while the public is saddled with the cost of the infrastructure and services that make the games possible. Protesters demanded that the millions of taxpayer dollars being spent on the Olympics should have gone to community needs. Other protesters ranging from animal rights groups demonstrating against the Olympic rodeo, to anti-police brutality demonstrations, to welfare rights groups attended each Olympic venue. Authorities at Salt Lake City provided demonstrators seven official zones, where they practiced their rights of free speech. This was employed during the Salt Lake City games in order to prevent the kind of violent and disorderly protest that has occurred in the past. These types of demonstrations aid in the understanding of others suffering in different countries discussed within this essay. Many athletes who are in the public’s eye have the best chance of reaching others and getting their message of beliefs across. Although, demonstrations and protests outside of the Olympic venue is also a good way of getting their message to others, it is not as effective as an athlete demonstrating it in front of the whole world. Athletes who were discussed in this essay, such as Tommie Smith, John Carlos, Naim Suleymanoglu, and Cathy Freeman, certainly took advantage in their hours on the spotlight to inform others of the problems that their countrymen were encountering, either socially or politically. Other demonstrations and protests, either religious or environmental in nature, are also important for the knowledge of an individual in understanding the different aspects of the demonstrators or protesters beliefs. Bibliography: WORKS CITED Turkey mourns end of Suleymanoglu legend. (2000, September). Agence France Presse. Boogaard, A. (2000, October 1). Image of the future thirty-two hours after his message was broadcast around the world, Tommie Smith is finally seeing it being received. The Fresno Bee, p. D1. Gloster, R. (2000, August 24). Athletes won’t be punished for carrying Aboriginal flag. The Associated Press Plaschke, B. (2000, September 13). While Australians get behind Cathy Freeman, they keep distance from most Aborigines. Los Angeles Times, p. D1 Powell, S. (2000, September 13). Olympics / She’s running for her race. Newsday, p. A76. Schaeffer, K. and Smith, S. (2000). The Olympics at the millennium. Rutgers University Press. Senn, A. E. (1999). Power, politics, and the Olympic games. Human Kinetics. Turkish Press Scanner: Pocket Hercules. (2000, September 20). Turkish Daily News.

Word Count: 1615