The Olympic Games are full of grand, empty gestures. This time, though, the truce feels like it matters in a turbulent world.
In 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.
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.
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.The modern truce has been broken three times, all by Russia, you will be surprised to know, and all without sanction, most recently whenThe Olympic truce is only a gesture.
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.
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