This is how you lose the Olympics

There is basically just one thing the Trump regime could do to convince the IOC to strip America of the Olympics... and they keep doing it.

The United States is set to host the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, and it’s almost too late for that to change. The games are only three years away, and hosting the Olympics is a massive logistical undertaking. Moving the Olympics now would be like asking a cargo ship to do donuts.

I have seen people speculate that the Olympics could move because of the Trump administration's regressive policies on race, gender, LGBTQ+ rights, and immigration, but I think that’s pretty unlikely. The IOC has never relocated an Olympics, and the IOC goes to great lengths to stay out of anything they define as “politics,” trying to remain as neutral as possible. Not to bring up Hitler, but, like… the IOC did literally let Hitler host the Olympics.

Basically, the IOC’s policy is to avoid taking a stance on anything, so long as a government’s actions don’t specifically interfere with international sports…

… But the Trump regime seems interested in specifically interfering with international sports.

These news stories are just from the past few weeks:

• Cuba’s women’s volleyball team was denied visas for a tournament in Puerto Rico. Cuban volleyball teams have played in dozens of tournaments in America over the years, even winning the gold medal at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. But Cuba was part of a recent Trump travel ban, so the government kept them out.

• Brazilian table tennis player Hugo Calderano, the No. 3 player in the world and a silver medalist at the World Championships in May, was denied a visa for a tournament in the United States. The reason was a 2023 visit to Cuba … for the 2023 Pan-American Table Tennis championships, an Olympic qualifying event in which multiple American and Puerto Rican players participated.

• Players and coaches on Senegal’s women’s basketball team were denied visas for a training camp in America. This in spite of the fact that the head coach and many of the team’s players are based in America. While Senegal has not been included on any travel bans yet, the country was on a list of 36 countries the Trump administration says might face restrictions in the future.

I think this is the one thing the United States could do to lose the Olympics. And they keep doing it.

It’s possible this is mere laziness, and that whatever government official denying these visas didn’t even realize they were keeping out athletes who were clearly coming to our country to compete in international sporting events. Time and time again, we have seen unintended consequences from hastily invented Trump policies enforced clumsily. But the Trump regime is proudly antagonistic. They just might be making a show of keeping these athletes out of the country, just to prove they can.

Nobody has ever lost an Olympics for denying visas to athletes, because nobody has ever been careless or brash enough to repeatedly deny visas to incoming athletes based on their nation of origin shortly before hosting the Olympics. But the IOC clearly considers it a no-no: Kuwait was stripped of an Olympic qualifying event in 2015 after denying a visa to an Israeli official. “The denial of a visa is against the non-discrimination principle of the Olympic Charter," the IOC said at the time.

The people who run the Olympics have long argued that sports and politics can and should remain entirely separate. The Olympic Charter (essentially, the constitution of the IOC) lists a duty “to maintain and promote (the Olympic Movement’s) political neutrality and to preserve the autonomy of sport” as one of the IOC's core tenets.

This cuts both ways. It means the IOC has palled up with dictators, fascists, autocrats, racists, and warmongers—to keep them out of the Olympics because of the way they run their countries would break the policy of political neutrality. And they’ve penalized athletes protesting racism and genocide, because they were bringing “politics” into sports.

But when a country’s amoral policies actually do interfere with sports, the IOC has the green light to take action. South Africa and Rhodesia for enforcing racial segregation in sports. Afghanistan was kept out of the Olympics in 2000 for prohibiting women from participating in sports.

Of course, there’s a big difference between banning Afghanistan and banning the United States. We’re giants in the world of international sports. We’re hosting the World Cup and Olympics. The billion-dollar TV contract for American broadcast rights keeps the IOC afloat financially, and that’s before we get to all the IOC’s lucrative partnerships with American companies like Coca-Cola and Airbnb. And hell, we’re great at The Olympics! No. 1 in all-time total medals, baby! It would be easy for the IOC to simply look the other way instead of taking a hardline stance on their golden goose.

But you could’ve said the same thing about Russia just a few years ago. Not so long ago, they were hosting the World Cup and the Olympics. Russia is No. 2 all-time in total medals, and multiple powerful international sports organizations, like the global boxing and fencing federations, were run by Russians. The IOC even gave Vladimir Putin membership in the Olympic Order, the highest honor they can give out!

But Russia was constantly picking fights with the international sports community, and their antagonistic government was dedicated to pissing off the entire world off. Eventually, enough members of the IOC were mad enough at Russia to punish them—officially, for violating the Olympic Truce and for starting sports organizations in Ukranian territory.

Right now, the United States is pissing off the world. Our government is starting feuds with our oldest, closest allies. We’re putting tariffs on everybody, down to uninhabited penguin isla nds. We’re also causing a ruckus in the global sports community by questioning the authority of the World Anti-Doping Agency. It’s not hard to imagine a world where the US government makes enough IOC members mad to swing the tide against us.

The new IOC president, gold medal-winning Zimbabwe native Kirsty Coventry, is literally from one of the countries whose citizens Trump has threatened to ban. Look at the list of the IOC’s 107 members—the people who could vote to take the Olympics away from America. How many of them are from countries Trump has directly or indirectly threatened in recent months? By my count, 11 IOC members are from countries whose citizens Trump has banned or threatened to ban from the United States (Afghanistan, Burundi, Bhutan, Cape Verde, Cuba, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Lesotho, South Sudan, and Uganda.)

Sure, the IOC is supposed to be apolitical. But will IOC members look away when the American government bans athletes from their countries from competing here?

While other repressive regimes host major international sporting events as an opportunity to show the world how friendly and nice they can be, the Trump regime seems eager to use our time on the world stage to demonstrate how cruel and violent their vision of America can be. They’ve already made ominous statements threatening fans visiting for the Club World Cup and the World Cup. You’ve heard of sportswashing; this is the opposite. (Sportsmuddying? Sportsdirtying?) If they’re keeping athletes from participating in relatively minor, low-profile events three years out, what will they do when the whole world is watching?