Opinion | The Olympics has never brought peace, and will not bring it to Korea

Only a fool would believe the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games will make North Korea less troublesome. The two Koreas have now marched 10 times at sporting events under a joint flag and are no nearer to peace. The closing ceremony will take place and sniping will resume, because the games are as much about sports as political point-scoring.

We’ve seen hopes for peace and harmony dashed throughout the 122-year history of the modern Olympics. The 1916 and 1940 games were cancelled due to war, Palestinian terrorists killed 11 Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972, the United States and its allies boycotted the 1980 Moscow Games while the Soviet Union and its allies, including North Korea, returned the favour in 1984 in Los Angeles. A bomb left two people dead and injured more than 100 in Atlanta in 1996. Beyond the two world wars and the Japanese invasion of Asia, there have been scores of conflicts in the Koreas, Vietnam, Iraq, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen.

Olympic movement founder Pierre de Coubertin envisaged the games leading to a healthier, happier, more peaceful world. He saw sportspeople as peace ambassadors (though he asserted that women should not take part as the sport they played was “impractical, uninteresting, unathletic and incorrect”). The bloody conflicts leading to the creation of Germany and Italy spurred in late-19th century Europe a peace movement embracing the French educator’s words: “Wars break out because nations misunderstand each other. We shall not have peace until prejudices ... shall have been outlived. To attain this end, what better means than to bring the youth of all countries periodically together for amicable trials of muscular strength and agility?”

But the peace sought by setting up the International Olympic Committee in 1894 never took root and, arguably, the games worsened rivalries, stoking patriotism and nationalism.

The idea for the Olympics came from the games of ancient Greece. Every four years for 12 centuries, a month-long truce was called to a seemingly endless cycle of conflict between city states to enable warriors to take part in a festival of athletics.