The lasting impact of GANEFO: When the IOC was forced to admit sports could not be separated from politics
By David Webster, Associate Professor of History / Professeur Agrégé, Département d’Histoire, Bishop’s University The Olympic Charter states one of the fundamental principles of Olympism is that “sports organizations within the Olympic Movement shall apply political neutrality.” In reality, the Olympics and politics are inseparable — and a movement in Asia almost 60 years ago has had a lasting impact on how the Olympics have become heavily politicized. In the 1960s, some 36 countries embraced a new counter-Olympics: GANEFO, the Games of the New Emerging Forces. GANEFO formed to challenge the International Olympic Committee, “a tool of the imperialists...
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