The Ioc and the World of Interdependence

T most of its history, the IOC insisted that sport was apart from the world of politics, and that the Olympic Games should not be used by sovereign states to further their political goals. Avery Brundage reflected this position best when instructing Lord Killanin just before Killanin left for South Africa in September 1967 to head up the IOC’s fact-finding committee on sport and apartheid. Brundage wrote Killanin as follows: “We must not become involved in political issues nor permit the Olympic Games to be used as a tool or as a weapon for an extraneous cause.” Juan Antonio Samaranch, however, brought a much different view to the IOC presidency in the 1980s. His diplomatic experience had taught him that the Olympic movement could not stand in isolation from international politics, and that the IOC must take measures to counter the political machinations that have surrounded the Olympic Games for most of the century. That these political “interferences” with the Games have become so much more prominent recently is a testimony to the great increase in importance and significance attached to sport since World War II Consequently, the Olympic Games have become an international spectacle of proportions that could not have been imagined by Pierre de Coubertin. The world of international politics has changed dramatically in the last few years. Recent political turmoil in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are testimony to this radical upheaval. The world can no longer be understood solely in terms of “Cold War” politics, or “realist” theories of international relations. Economic and social factors, as well as ethnicity and religion have become much more important aspects of international affairs. It is our contention that in order to comprehend how the IOC will function in this new