Can free expression and ‘neutrality’ coexist at Games? Athletes test limits.

Gwen Berry entered the Olympic Stadium on Aug. 3 wearing two uniforms. 

One – her bright blue and red compression gear – stood for the United States, the country she would be representing in the night’s hammer throw final. The other – her black lipstick, black eye makeup, and raised fist – stood for the people she hoped to advocate for, those facing social injustice.

“I know a lot of people like me ... are scared to succeed or speak out,” she said after the competition. “As long as I can represent those people I’m fine.”

Placing 11th Tuesday night, Ms. Berry didn’t perform the way she wanted. But she didn’t come to Tokyo just to compete. Her goal, she’s emphasized, was also to call for social and racial justice on the world stage. 

Raised in Ferguson, Missouri, Ms. Berry is one of the most politically active athletes at an especially politically active Olympics. She’s protested on the podium at major competitions before. Had she medaled in Tokyo, she likely would have done so again, like other athletes who have spent the last week pushing the International Olympic Committee’s rules on political expression.

Just weeks before the Games began, the IOC altered its controversial Rule 50, which bars political expression. Some demonstrations are now allowed at the Games, but not during competition or the sacrosanct medal ceremony. Many competitors welcome the changes. But some, like Ms. Berry, object to the limits and are willing to break them.

Since the Black Lives Matter movement took off, athletes increasingly view activism as a responsibility. Yet the IOC has stuck to its core values for 125 years, and among those is a belief that sport can and should be “neutral.” As more athletes demonstrate this week, including on the podium, that negotiation of values and viewpoints is playing out live.

That’s part of the Olympics, says Alan Tomlinson, professor of sport and leisure studies at the University of Brighton. Perhaps more than any other sporting event, the Games reflect society, and just like the rest of the world, they’re trying to reset boundaries for political speech. Events in Tokyo show an Olympic crucible of norms and values, as its members again debate whether political expression should be one of the Games’ core principles.

“Every Games has to remake the Olympic ideals in some sort of way, but not sacrifice them,” says Professor Tomlinson. “It can be almost an editing process, a refining process.”

Sports “neutral”?

In 1968, when sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their black-gloved fists during a medal ceremony, the IOC used Rule 50 to punish them. Within days, Mr. Smith and Mr. Carlos were expelled from the Games in Mexico City. 

The pair later became an icon of Olympic bravery – so much so that the IOC now exhibits a photo of them at its museum. But the event and the IOC’s initial response crystallized the apolitical demeanor that the IOC expects from its athletes, says Bruce Kidd, professor of sport and public policy at the University of Toronto. 

The IOC worries that a worldwide competition without limits on protest would become a cauldron, not a melting pot, says Professor Kidd. The Olympics include every country, and thus every form of government. The potential for ideological conflict is high, as are accusations of bias against its leadership. Like a family that avoids politics at dinner, the IOC prefers to rule out certain topics if it means everyone comes to the table.

“The unifying power of the Games can only unfold if everyone shows respect for and solidarity to one another,” wrote IOC President Thomas Bach in a 2020 op-ed in The Guardian. “Otherwise, the Games will descend into a marketplace of demonstrations of all kinds, dividing and not uniting the world.”

Still, it’s almost impossible to create a fully apolitical space, and the Games have always been a stage for the best and worst of politics. The same event that encouraged South Korea to democratize in 1988 also acted as propaganda for Nazi Germany in 1936. Even today, nationalism remains a powerful Olympic force.

“Sport is a reflection of society, and as such, it reflects a lot of the social ills that we have in society,” says Yannick Kluch, an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center for Sport Leadership.

If nationalism and discrimination mean sport isn’t “neutral,” says Dr. Kluch, then participants who don’t speak out endorse the status quo. Among athletes, that belief has grown more popular over the last five years, especially since former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick and then U.S. soccer star Megan Rapinoe began kneeling during the national anthem to protest social injustice. Following last summer’s worldwide protests, the gesture has become commonplace in American sports.

During those protests, the IOC was months into a comprehensive review of Rule 50, involving input from all national Olympic committees. Professor Kluch advised the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s analysis of the topic – a process that led the USOPC to permit most forms of protest, citing many athletes’ desire to speak out. He rues that the IOC didn’t do the same.

“If you kind of take away the podium as an outlet to express your opinions, your views, to call attention to injustice, you’re not really providing freedom of expression,” he says. 

Real-time debate

Yet at a sporting event where the whole world’s invited, freedom of expression can cause controversy. 

The IOC is investigating whether two Chinese track cyclists violated Rule 50 by wearing pins of Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong on the podium Aug. 3. Meanwhile, it was initially weighing whether U.S. athlete Raven Saunders broke the rule by crossing her arms above her head – a gesture of solidarity with oppressed people, she said – while receiving her silver medal for the shot put Aug. 1. The inquiry has since been suspended, following the death of Ms. Saunders’ mother.

With other athletes having protested, and there reportedly being more to come, how the IOC will enforce its rule remains unclear. In the past, it’s deferred to national Olympic committees to discipline their athletes for Rule 50 violations. 

“What stood out to me most about Rule 50 was the fact that no punishment has been made clear,” says Sue Bird, a U.S. flag bearer, veteran on the basketball team, and Ms. Rapinoe’s fiancée. “I think that actually speaks volumes because it comes across a little bit like [an] ‘I dare you. I dare you to do this and find out what happens.’”

In part, the IOC justified its decision to restrict protest on the podium by referencing a survey it conducted of Olympic athletes, finding a majority did not want protests during competition. Observers like Professors Kluch and Kidd question whether the survey’s sample was representative, but the results still suggest diverse athlete thought. 

U.S. basketball player Damian Lillard is one of the most politically active players in the NBA, one of America’s most politically active leagues. But that activism isn’t the reason he’s in Tokyo.

The team “all signed up to come here to win a gold medal, and that’s what our focus has been,” he says. “We haven’t gotten together and said we’re going to make some huge political statement.”

“The work to do that [activism] – it takes action and not just doing something that everybody’s going to see,” says Mr. Lillard. “That work has to be done when we’re home.”

“More than an athlete”

When Ms. Berry goes home to Houston, her work will continue as well. 

Recently, she and her son were offered scholarships to attend Tennessee State University, a historically Black university. She plans to study philanthropy or economics for a master’s degree. She’s not sure whether Paris in 2024 is on her horizon.

The goal is still to advocate for oppressed communities, she says. A degree, like her platform as an athlete, is only a tool in service of that mission.  

“I’m going to help my people; that’s what I’m doing first,” she said after the hammer throw final. “I’m more than an athlete. I’m just a different person now.”