Paul Lewis: Out of touch International Olympic Committee doing itself no favours with hastily-softened warning

Sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos engage in a victory stand protest on the podium at the 1968 Olympic Games. Photo / Getty Images

COMMENT:

It'd be an insult to dinosaurs to call the International Olympic Committee dinosaurs.

It wasn't long ago they made themselves look ridiculous by stubbornly insisting "the games will go on" when it was obvious the Tokyo Olympics would have to be postponed for a year because of Covid-19.

Now the IOC have shamed themselves again with their hastily-softened edict that any athlete taking a knee in Tokyo in support of George Floyd would risk a ban.

They have now said they'll discuss things with the athletes before coming to a decision but the thick hide of the IOC initially seemed impervious to the emotional phenomenon sweeping the world in the wake of Floyd's cruel death.

I mean, how out of touch can you be? It's doubly woeful because the Olympics – Mexico, 1968 – provided probably the most famous sporting protest in support of the same issue Floyd's death has sparked into flame again: treatment of black people.

After the final of the men's track & field 200m, gold medallist and world record-breaker Tommie Smith and bronze medallist John Carlos each famously raised a black-gloved hand while the US national anthem played at the victory ceremony – the Black Power salute. Black Power's activities ranged from peaceful political lobbying to armed revolt throughout the 1960s and 1970s, with some of their more militant leaders killed in conflicts with police. Sound familiar?

The one-armed salute from Smith and Carlos caused outrage; that era was when "keep politics out of sport" was popular – a misguided view, as we have come to realise over the years, particularly with sport playing an active role in keeping the Floyd controversy alive.

It's worth reviewing the Smith and Carlos episode, if only to demonstrate the IOC's inability to understand its own history, never mind global trends. Carlos and Smith endured much for that heads-lowered, arms-raised moment. The American team sent them home to an outraged US after a furious IOC demanded it. Americans perceived a lack of respect; some mistakenly identified the salute as that of the Black Panthers, the violent arm of the civil rights movement; leading US sports broadcaster Brent Musberger described them as being like "black-skinned stormtroopers".

Doors were shut in their faces, jobs almost impossible to find. There were death threats; their houses were attacked. Both marriages failed as their lives disintegrated. Carlos' first wife committed suicide. A rock crashed through a window near where Smith's baby was lying. Carlos, unable to find a job paying more than minimum wage as a nightclub bouncer and security guard, said the family had to burn the kids' beds to stay warm.

After time, their careers recovered and they became more recognised as racial equality pioneers. But there is another little-told and little-realised part of their story. The silver medal in that 1968 200m race went to a tall Australian, Peter Norman. It was he who came up with the idea of splitting the one pair of black gloves Smith and Carlos had.

Ironically, Smith and Carlos didn't like each other much. But they both liked Norman. Carlos later said Smith had the gloves, Carlos had the idea for the protest – and Norman came up with the plan of each wearing one glove. Norman wore a human rights badge in support of their action because of his belief that "all men are created equal".

So the very thing Smith and Carlos protested about occurred in that Olympic tunnel before the victory ceremony for the 200m - black and white working together in mutual respect; the white boy from a country whose race relations has attracted little praise. Aboriginals were not even counted in Australia's census until 1967.

Norman paid for his involvement too. He went home to disapproval, ostracised by the Australian media. He was largely forgotten, especially after falling on hard times when an injury turned gangrenous and he nearly lost a leg. Forced into a wheelchair, he lapsed into depression and drank heavily.

He recovered and took a job with the Melbourne department of sport and was active in administration and the organisation of the 2000 Sydney Olympics. I attended those Olympics and can attest there was barely a mention of Norman, whose 1968 time would have won a medal in the 200m at the next four Olympics (often a gold).

Norman died in 2006; two of his pallbearers were Smith and Carlos, both now in their mid-70s.

And the moral of this story? Even though, 52 years ago, an Olympic protest didn't solve anything (Floyd's death proves racial equality is still a goal rather than an achievement), it played a large role in heightened awareness around the world.

Protests can shift the needle of public opinion. When an issue inflames the world as much as the Floyd controversy, why should the Olympics absent itself from being a platform for such protest – particularly as many of their athletes are people of colour and people of all colours have lent their weight to change?

The alternative is to ban – encouraging the kind of slammed doors Smith and Carlos experienced and Norman's societal exile.

The IOC's knee-jerk warning of such a ban did them no favours, the main threat being to tear a hole of Olympian proportions in the credibility of the Olympic movement.