As the Winter Youth Olympics get underway in Lausanne, Switzerland (the IOC's own backyard), the IOC took care of some housekeeping items. They elected some new members and rubber-stamped Gangwon Province in South Korea (aka PyeongChang) as the next Winter Youth Olympic host in 2024. They also made a pair of announcements involving athletes that will almost certainly come into play during the Tokyo Games.
I'll start with the easy one. They further relaxed the controversial "Rule 40," which had been the subject of legal challenges in a number of countries. Under the previous interpretation, "Rule 40" essentially prohibited athletes from using their name or likeness for commercial purposes in the period directly before and during the Olympics unless it was for an official Olympic sponsor.
This rule was designed to protect the interests of Olympic sponsors, which pay a lot of money for that distinction. However, it had an adverse effect on the athletes since it essentially prevented them from capitalizing on the achievement of making the Olympic team at the most valuable time of their careers.
They eventually realized that this was inherently unfair, so they came up with a compromise. Athletes are allowed to participate in advertising campaigns with their personal sponsors, as long as they're generic, are in place before the athlete makes the Olympic team, and doesn't use the trademarked Olympic terms and logos. This is important. Because those sponsors shouldn't have access to those logos or give any sort of implication that they're involved with the Olympics. Not when other companies (which may be their direct competitors) are shelling out billions of dollars to the IOC for the privilege to use them.
The athletes, meanwhile, can do both. They're Olympians. They've earned the right to refer to themselves as such. They're also represented by their individual sponsors, so it's reasonable that they'd want to thank them and let them share in their accomplishment (which in many cases wouldn't be possible without that support). In the past, they couldn't do that. Now they can.
In a way, it's like NCAA recruiting. Coaches can't say anything directly about a potential recruit until they sign an NLI, but there's no stopping the athlete from doing it. The directive from compliance offices is always "click, don't type," meaning it's fine to retweet something from the athlete, but saying something directly could potentially be considered an NCAA violation.
Under the new guidelines, Olympic athletes are free to thank and receive congratulations from their personal sponsors, as well as participating in generic advertising. Their individual sponsors, however, are still limited in what they can do, which is necessary to provide the Olympic sponsors with exclusivity in their areas and shield them from ambush marketing (which was the original intent of the rule in the first place).
There are undoubtedly going to be some smaller organizations that are still upset they can't promote their affiliation with an Olympic athlete, but that was never going to happen. Not with the amount of money involved. And, frankly, this was a good compromise. The athletes earned the right to call themselves "Olympians." Not their sponsors! Now they can thank the people who helped them get there. Including their sponsors.
While everyone knew changes to Rule 40 were coming, the other new piece of Olympic legislation introduced on Thursday was a little more surprising. In Tokyo, athletes will be prohibited from any sort of racial, political or religious demonstration at any Olympic site or venue, including the field of play and medals ceremonies. Anyone who violates this rule will be subject to three-pronged discipline from their National Olympic Committee, International Federation AND the IOC.
It's important to note that this came directly from the IOC Athletes' Commission. Because that's basically the athletes saying to each other, "There's a time and a place, and the Olympics aren't either." It's disrespectful to their competitors. They've worked for years for their Olympic moment, yet the only thing anybody's going to talk about is the protest that hijacked it.
Athlete activists are nothing new. In fact, they've become more and more prevalent in recent years. Colin Kaepernick and Megan Rapione are obviously examples 1 and 1A, but they aren't the only ones. The last straw might've been last summer, when Americans Race Imboden and Gwen Berry protested on back-to-back days at the Pan Am Games. This on the heels of the World Swimming Championships, where Australia's Mack Horton and Great Britain's Duncan Scott both received widespread attention for refusing to share the podium with China's Sun Yang, who was competing despite a pending doping suspension.
Whether you agree with Horton and Scott or not, you can't argue that it wasn't a bad look all around. It was embarrassing for FINA, disrespectful to Sun (which was the entire point), and incredibly selfish. They took a World Championships medals ceremony, something that is designed to celebrate the achievement of three athletes, and made it all about themselves.
And no one is telling the athletes not to have an opinion or that they can't share it. They can talk about whatever they like on social media or in press conferences or during interviews. Just leave it off the field. People came to see an athletic competition. Not a political demonstration. And you should respect your competitors in the same way you would want them to respect you.
Not everyone is keen on these new regulations. I even saw one article accusing the IOC of hypocrisy by enacting them. It's an issue that concerned the IOC, yes, but it's the athletes themselves who established these guidelines. They're the only ones who can see it both ways. And they're the ones who decided that any sort of protest or demonstration, no matter how legitimate, destroys the dignity of the competition and diminishes the achievement that's supposed to be celebrated.
Let's not kid ourselves, either. There's still going to be plenty of political statements made by athletes at the Tokyo Olympics. There will be outspoken critics of the Russians who are allowed to compete. There will be Americans who'll want to make it known which candidate they support in the Presidential election. And there will probably be that old Olympic standard--the Islamic athlete who refuses to face an Israeli opponent.
What these restrictions aim to do, though, is limit the protests to the appropriate forums. Because that's not what people are coming to see or what the competition deserves. Athletes might want to get their point across, only for it to become divisive because of the way they chose to express it. Is that the message you want to send? The answer is "No." That point has now been made. Very clearly.
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