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During a recent visit to Seoul, Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), said the 2014 Sochi Olympics will undergo the toughest anti-doping scrutiny of any Winter Games.
Doping appeared high on the discussion agenda for the IOC executive board retreat just wrapping up in Montreux, Switzerland, with rightful concern for weeding out cheating in the Olympics. Also on the agenda were a review of the bidding process for Olympic host cities and a proposed raising of the 70-year mandatory retirement age for IOC members.
But if we're talking about cheating and fair play at the Olympics, what about the discussion about how Sochi is cheating the athletes, civil society and the Olympic Movement itself? Preparations for the Sochi Games have been in flagrant violation of the Olympic Charter's principle of "placing sport at the service of humanity," and that important discussion is absent from the IOC's agenda.
When Sochi was selected to host the 2014 Winter Games, it became responsible for its pledge to uphold the "Fundamental Principles of Olympism." As outlined in the Olympic Charter, this includes the mission of promoting ethics and sport for the "harmonious development of humankind," as well as rejecting discrimination.
As construction began on the Olympics venues, however, families were forced out of their homes as they watched them being bulldozed, and some of those families were left without compensation. Migrant workers from the Soviet bloc were lured into construction jobs for the Olympic sites and found themselves being exploited without the compensation they expected. Some had their passports confiscated and were threatened with deportation if they complained.
Human Rights Watch and other groups have been documenting such abuses since 2008. The IOC and Russian authorities have largely chosen to turn a blind eye, despite the evidence staining the Olympic Games' mission of contributing to human dignity and peaceful development.
This year, Russia's ban on gay "propaganda" and the outlawing of the Pride House tradition at the Sochi Olympics should have raised more red flags for the IOC. Russia's anti-gay law ― passed last summer as the countdown to the Sochi Games gained momentum ― is incompatible with the goal of having an Olympic environment free of "any form of discrimination ... on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise." It also threatens freedom of expression by punishing any form of expression regarding relationships other than heterosexual ones by fines, detention and deportation for foreigners.
And by refusing to set up a Sochi Olympic Pride House, Sochi is cheating the athletes of a tradition that has been a hub of information regarding homophobia and a recreational meeting place for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) athletes.
Despite assurances from the Russian government that "everyone will be welcome at the Games in Sochi regardless of their sexual orientation," recent events indicate otherwise. As the February 2014 Sochi Games approach, a crackdown on activists and journalists, as well as hate-filled propaganda against LGBT people, have punctuated the drumbeat up to the global event.
The IOC's deaf ear and dismissive shrug as the integrity of the Olympics continues to erode is a far cry from its role in defending the Olympic principles and bringing about positive change around other Games, like the Seoul Olympics of 1988.
As many Koreans remember, the 1988 Olympics marked an important turnaround for our struggling democracy and nascent economy that was opening up to the world. The IOC then had taken an active political role in championing South Korean democracy and elections at a politically unstable time that ushered the end of President Chun Doo-hwan's leadership. History books pay tribute to the legacy of the Olympics in highlighting 1988 as a golden marker in South Korea's timeline of political, economic and social development as a country.
If the IOC wants history to remember the Sochi Games for its integrity, the anti-doping strategy is only a small part of it. It should take a careful look at what has been allowed to happen in Sochi under its aegis, and it should consider a strategy for scrutinizing how host cities cheat on their Olympic pledges.
Kim Doyeun is a graduate student at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. Follow her on Twitter @_doyeun.
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