Opinion
Olympic Games: The truce is out there
Greg Baum
Sports columnistIn the eighth century BC, Iphitos, king of a Greek state called Elis on the Peloponnesian peninsula, asked the oracle of Delphi how he might put a stop to the constant wars he fought with neighbouring city-states and, so legend has it, was advised to host a peaceful sporting competition between them.
To facilitate this, Iphitos, Cleisthenes of Pisa (the Greek state, not the leaning Italian) and Lycurgus of Sparta signed an “ekecheiria”, or truce, guaranteeing safe conduct of athletes and spectators to and from the games. So at Olympia in 776 BC, the Olympics began.
The Olympic flame on its way from Greece to Paris.Credit: AP
In 1992, the IOC revived the Olympic truce, co-opting the UN to their cause. Needless to say of their joint enterprise, they lay it on pretty thick.“The Olympic movement aspires to contribute to a peaceful future for humankind through the educational value of sport,” they say. “It aims to promote the maintenance of peace, mutual understanding and goodwill.” Aristotle, eat your heart out.
The Olympic movement has always cloaked itself somewhat piously in the guise of a force for peace. But this is not a time for cynicism. In 2024, there is tumult everywhere in the world and outright war in at least three places, and it does feel as if the Olympics can serve not merely as distraction, but as an anchor for hope, beginning with a particular stress on the truce.
What if, for the duration of the Olympics, the only shooting to be heard was on the range at Chateauroux? What if “bomb” meant no more than a hot favourite’s defeat? What if “hard left” was merely what a walker does at the turning point and “far right” described only lane eight on the running track?
What if an attack was no more than a forward movement on a court or pitch, or what Jessica Hull does on the last lap at the Stade de France? What if martial analogies were banned altogether? That would be bloody tough on sportswriters.
But what if, instead of bouquets of flowers, medallists were presented with sprigs from an olive tree?
I know, I know: Over there, right behind the clay pigeon, a flying pig. And across there, in that red-and-white strip, Santa Claus. The ancient truce was only ever a symbolic thing anyway; the wars between city states went on, just not at or on the road to Olympia.
Olympia, the site of the ancient Olympics.
The modern truce has been broken three times, all by Russia, you will be surprised to know, and all without sanction, most recently when invading Ukraine just days after the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Russia, which is excluded from these Olympics, would be an unbackable favourite to dishonour the truce again.
The Stade de France.Credit: AP
The Olympic truce is only a gesture. Can it be any sort of match for ideology, or for that matter instinct for survival, or lust for revenge? Put that way, no. But we have to start somewhere.
Frankly, the Olympics have lost a little of their gloss. But the spirit of the Olympics is a palpable thing to anyone who has ever been lucky enough to go to the Games.
The uplift of sport is real, too. Witness the joy two remarkable young Spaniards are bringing to their country in soccer and tennis right now, and two surprising Italians at Wimbledon, and even the pleasure the English soccer team is bringing to their sceptically disposed country folk.
The balm of sport is real, but fleeting. Now, now more than ever, it needs to be nourished, in the name of the dead tens of thousands who won’t ever get to see these or any Olympics, among them an unknown number who might have competed at the Brisbane 2032 Games and beyond, and another unknown number who might have contributed meaningfully to a better world.
“The world appeal for the respect of the Olympic truce is based on a simple premise,” said Greek politician and diplomat Stavros Lambrinidis in Washington in the prelude to the 2004 Athens Olympics. “Conflicts in the world will not end overnight. However, if we can stop fighting for 16 days, maybe we can do it forever.”
Lambrinidis’s ideal was that the truce, re-invoked every two years for summer and winter Games, might help to concentrate minds on peace for longer and longer periods. It was too much to ask, of course. At the Sydney 2000 Games, the two Koreas marched together in the opening ceremony, but two years later were involved in a naval skirmish and are now more inimical than ever.
But what if too much to ask meant no one ever did? The ancient Greeks were ahead of their times, and arguably ours, in a few of their ideas. One, democracy, is losing favour. All the more reason, then, to speak up for ekecheiria.
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