An Olympics without flags - a road to innovation?

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1968 was year of significant upheaval and change. Events such as the waves of students protests, counterculture movements, the Prague Spring, increased efforts for civil rights in the United States, and the demonstrations that led to the Tlatelolco Massacre in Mexico City had a profound and lasting impact on global politics and society. 

Most of these developments shared a common desire to challenge existing power structures and demand greater freedoms and rights. In October that year, the Olympic Games were impacted by the global mood as well. The raised fists of US athletes Tommy Smith and John Carlos on the Olympic podium became one of the most iconic images in Olympic history. Their protest against social injustice in their home country took place while the US flag was raised and The Star-Spangled Banner played in their honour.

It is much less addressed that in 1968, the Olympic Games were on the brink of radical reform related to flags and anthems. When the members of the International Olympic Committee gathered in Mexico City for their annual session, they found on their desks a proposal to remove all national flags and anthems from the Olympic Games. 

This idea had been discussed loosely in previous meetings, but the IOC member Prince George William of Hanover had produced a written proposal for the meeting in 1968. The Prince argued that in order to save the Olympic idea and to readjust the focus of 
Olympic Games’ away from politics to peace and sport, political symbols had to disappear. 

The proposal found a 34 to 22 majority, just four votes short of the necessary two thirds majority. A radical change in Olympic history nearly happened.

Flags contradict neutrality

The debate on a removal of national flags remerged several times at subsequent IOC meetings, but was never put up for a vote again. 

The Olympic Movement came closest to an event without national symbolism in 2007. IOC President Jacques Rogge had originally intended to keep them out of the Youth Olympic Games, but changed his stance ahead of the IOC Session that decided on the establishment of the Youth Olympics. 

With Rogge’s about-turn, political views instantly found their way into the youth sport event. Already on the first day of the first Youth Olympic Games, 16-year old Iranian athlete Mohammad Soleimani did not participate in a taekwondo gold medal fight against Israel’s Gili Haimovitz for political reasons. When the Israeli flag was raised on the podium, Soleimani’s spot remained empty.

The contradiction on national flag use of the Olympic Games centers on the claim that sport must be politically neutral. This policy has its origins in the Cold War period when Western sport administrators became concerned about a potential politicisation of international sporting arenas through the Communist bloc. 

It would have been consequential to remove national symbols at this point. However, the IOC decided against it and the development of the Olympic Games into a global brand in subsequent decades profited financially, politically, and in popularity from the inclusion of national flags. 

The paradox of the continuing claimed separation of politics and flags and the continued use of political symbols was created. Today, a removal of all national symbols appears unthinkable from economic and political perspectives. 

Flags out of ceremonies

But can we really not imagine an Olympics without flags? I admit that it is difficult to entirely remove national affiliations from the Olympic Games. But why could we not consider a removal of national flags from the ceremonies? 

I propose to bring in the national flags into the Olympic stadium for the Opening Cerremony, ideally by volunteers and not by athletes, and then lock them away for the time of the sport competitions. In this way, politicians could still see “their” flags carried into the arena, but the political symbolism could not impact the sport events – the core of the Olympic Games.

The focus during the victory ceremonies could fully be on the individual athletes if flags are not hoisted and anthems not played. Prince George Wilhem of Hanover argued already in his 1968 proposal that it was “against good sense to impart the honour of victory to the winner's country by playing the anthem and hoisting its flag.” 

It is also a contradiction to the current Olympic Charter in which it is clearly defined that “(t)he Olympic Games are competitions between athletes in individual or team events and not between countries”. 

There is room for creativity to replace the national symbols with other cultural or personal elements. Athletes could make their own choice on which song they would like to hear. Similarly, a video compilation of their youth coaches, family, friends, and other supporters could be produced and show. 

What implications would such a proposal have?

Make room for multiple identities

Today, individuals have multiple, overlapping identities. Migration, trans-national marriages, the refugee crisis, and global connectivity have led to fragmentations and much more flexible individual identities. 

This also applies to Olympic athletes. Shorttracker Victor Ahn represented South Korea, Russia, and China (as coach) at recent Winter Olympic Games. Athletes like pole vaulter Armand Duplanties have dual citizenships. Others identify with their regions, cities, or local communities much more than with their nations. Why do they have to be reduced to one national symbol during the most important moments of their sporting careers? 

If no national flag is raised, individuals’ ethnic, regional, or community identities could be highlighed in different ways. In this way, much more nuanced understandings of identity could be provided. 

Athletes might explore and express their identities in new ways, leading to a deeper and more personal sense of belonging that is not tied to their nation but to their own experiences and values. 

This does not mean that they could then take for example the rainbow flag with them to express an alternative identity. Rather, an Olympics without flags would provide the IOC with a much more solid basis to remove all flags from its events rather than under the current status quo where the rainbow flag is deemed to be of political nature.

Relate to athletes through storytelling

We also do not know whether audiences could not create other emotional connections to the participating athletes than simply through their national flags. E-sport can serve as an example here. The leading competitive e-sport formats are not organised around the nation concepts, but draw large communities of followers, who watch competitions without the involvement of nations and flags.

In fact, the IOC already acknowledges individual athletes’ stories on its Olympic Channel, where individual athletes’ journeys, personal struggles, and achievements are marketed to the audience. 

National broadcasters could equally be forced to put more emphasis on creative storytelling techniques that are not only reduced to nationality, and instead focus on Olympic values and principles. This attempt to create strong emotional connections between athletes and viewers could be strenghtened without viewing athletes solely through a nationalistic lens.

In this way, the Olympics could attract a younger audience who value inclusivity and personal story-telling much more than national identity. Just take the global social media follower numbers of the most prominent Olympic athletes. Or consider Cristiano Ronaldo’s transfer to the Saudi Arabia: his new club Al-Nassr received 2.5 million new Instagram followers  within a few hours. 

Personal stories and achievements are more likely to create viral moments on social media, increasing the Olympic Games’ visibility and engagement online, an area where the IOC is currently struggling.

Flags of recognitions or currently not recognised territories could be included in the group of flags that will be locked away after the opening ceremony. This would allow individual US state flags or the flags of Catalonia and the Faroe Islands to be brought into the Olympic stadium and then laid to rest for the time of the sporting competitions. 

After all, those communities would also sign up to the fact that all political sentiments should be removed from the sporting competitions. In turn, this could lead to an increase in viewership of individuals from such regions and from other marginalised or underrepresented groups.

National pride still possible

If nation-states are only in the game for the political symbolism, are they not revealing that they were deceiving the international sport community in the first place? Moreover, success by Olympic athletes, whose origins will continue to be known, can still bring national pride, even without a reduction of their success to explicit national symbols. 

Again, e-sport can serve as an example here: governments invest large sums into e-sport even though national flags do not play a prominent role in the gaming competitions at all.

Moreover, there is no reason to believe that the elite athletes would suddenly stop being role models for healthy living and promoters of physical activities amongst a broader public, which is the most common justification for governments to invest in elite sport. Thus, positive health outcomes could still be promoted through continued financing, and so could national sports programs that teach life skills, such as teamwork or resilience.

At the same time, the proposal would further strengthen the disassociation between athlete and country that is increasingly challenged by independent athletes’ organisations. Consequently, a direct financial participation of Olympic athletes at the IOC’s revenues as demanded for example by Athleten Deutschland could gain much more public support.

Closer to the Olympic ideals

In sum, an Olympic Games without national flags at the ceremonies would appear to be much closer to the Olympic idea and provide a much more solid foundation for the IOC to argue for political neutrality around the event. 

Themes such as global unity, peace, inclusiveness, and internationalism as intended by the founder of the Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin, could be promoted much more honestly. At the very least, a serious debate about the proposal could trigger everyone involved to shift perspectives and begin thinking outside of what is currently taken for granted.

The easier, but potentially more dangerous alternative is to acknowledge that the Olympic Games are first and foremost a stage for national political power demonstrations after all. It is clear, however, that both alternatives are more consequential than the IOC’s current balancing act that pretends an impossible neutrality of sport and makes all involved in sport to become hypocrites.