Beijing 2022: China should accept political heat as normal, with international scrutiny for Olympic hosts nothing new, US academic and writer says
- Emmy-winning US sports studies professor Amy Bass insists China is enduring what every host nation has gone through
- Bass says IOC has come under fire for role in Peng Shuai case, but organisation has a long history of activism as well
Beijing 2022 officials should accept political heat as par for the course in the lead up to February’s Winter Olympic Games, a top American sports academic said, with host countries for major events historically coming under increased international scrutiny.
Amy Bass, a professor of sports studies at Manhattanville College in New York, is also the author of Not the Triumph but the Struggle: The 1968 Olympics and the Making of the Black Athlete, and has written an article for CNN about the implications of the Peng Shuai case for Beijing ahead of the 2022 Games.
Bass, who won an Emmy for her work with NBC during the 2012 London Olympic Games, said historically, every host nation has had to endure international scrutiny ahead of an Olympics, be that in summer or winter.
“Sports are inherently political,” she said. “The Olympic Games are inherently political because the process by which a team enters is national delegation.
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“So, if you think of the pomp and circumstance of the Olympics, the flags, the parade of nations, the host and what the host’s responsibilities in terms of the sporting competition and what we call the cultural Olympiad, it’s all inherently political.”