International Games News

September 1998

Commonwealth Games Ready or Not

The Malaysian capitol will put its extensive international games host experience to good use in the next few weeks. Kuala Lumpur hosted the South East Asian Games on four occasions since 1965, and this decade has hosted the World Corporate Games (1993) the Asia Pacific Games for the Deaf (1996).

The Queen’s Baton, a Commonwealth tradition in lieu of a torch, is being relayed around Malaysia after travelling to Commonwealth nations around the globe. A message from the Queen tucked away safely in the baton will be read at the Opening Ceremony.

Malaysian organizers have invested so much time and energy into the opening ceremonies they have announced that if heavy rains cancel the cultural exhibition portion of the Opening Ceremony, due to the nature of the equipment and props involved, they will proceed with the parade of athletes and hold the cultural festivities the following day, or the first day the weather makes it feasible.

The Commonwealth Games have added more sports than ever before, in particular team sports such as cricket, netball, field hockey and rugby . Team sports have never before been included in the games. The Malaysian hosts hope to use the home ground and the greater number of sports to good advantage. Malaysian sports heads are predicting seven gold medal haul. Malaysia’s best showing so far at been 2 gold, three silver and two bronze at the last games in Victoria.

Games organizers have had to overcome tremendous difficulties to be ready for the games. The fires in south east Asia caused concern that the games may have to be moved. The Asian financial worries have caused the organizers to trim the budget this past January. Then when financial support was most needed, the government ordered the organizing committee to terminate one of its main sponsors, a beer company, so the games would not be seen to be promoting alcoholism. Using 3 million gallons of water to test the swimming pools this past spring caused some guilt to the organizers because water was being rationed in Kuala Lumpur at the time. Finally, transportation and computer information links had to be worked out, and no one knows quite yet how they will hold up under the actual stress of the games.

But ready or not the Commonwealth is coming to Malaysia.

Why Can't the Gay Games be the "Gay Olympics"?

At the conclusion of the Gay Games this past month in Amsterdam (August 1998), an ancient question arose. Why can’t the Gay Games be the Gay Olympics? Many participants seemed to be perturbed that the games were being unfairly made to refrain from the use of the word Olympic.

The answer has its historic roots in decisions made by the revivers of the Olympic Games over 100 years ago. No games have been singled out or treated differently. The IOC has since its beginnings held steadfast in its opinion that the word Olympic be used for the Olympic Games alone, the Special Olympics being the one exception.

The issue shows up first in IOC minutes in 1913, when the IOC was informed that its American members had successfully protested the use of the title "American Olympic Games" for a Chicago track meet. 

That same year Japan, China and the Philippines established a regional games which were called the "First Asian Olympic Games". The name was changed to the Far East Championships for all subsequent editions.

In 1919 the IOC protested the use of the name "Olympiade Catalan" for a competition in Barcelona. Jeux Catalan was substituted.  Also in 1919, IOC President Pierre de Coubertin wrote a letter of protest to the organizers of the Inter-Allied Games that were to be held in Paris that year.  De Coubertin was concerned that the word Olympic was being used in various newspapers to describe the competitions. Elwood Brown of the YMCA, who was helping to organize the games, replied to de Coubertin. "Certain newspaper reports have included the term 'Olympic' as an explanatory term. This is done, I observe, quite commonly everywhere. The word 'Olympic' has come to mean, in the newspaper world, any great international athletic meeting." Brown went on to explain that the organizers of the games were not using the word Olympic in any official capacity.  Brown and de Coubertin later went on to work together in the next decade establishing regional games.

When Alice Milliat, the founder of the Federation Sportive Feminine International, wanted to establish events for women in 1922, she called her games the Jeux Olympiques Feminins. Pierre de Coubertin and the IAAF took notice. A compromise of sorts was agreed to. The FSFI would drop the use of the word Olympic, and the IOC would admit women into its games.

In 1923 Frenchman Jean Petitjean was promoting his first games for university students as the University Olympic Games. De Coubertin again protested and convinced him to change the name. The International University Games were established, and are know known around the world as the World University Games, World Student Games or Universiade.

In 1924 the organizers of the first World Games for the Deaf wanted to call their games the Deaf Olympics. This was disallowed.

The minutes of the IOC session in Lisbon in 1926 report several other reports of the use of the term olympic and olympiad such as the "workers olympiads" to the consternation of the IOC.

In 1928 the IOC quashed altogether a competition that was to be called the "Hispo-American Olympiade", and in 1931 told the Balkan nations to change their event from the "Balkaniade" to the Balkan Games.

Despite the constant efforts of the IOC they could not curtail the use of the word Olympic. In 1937, the IOC took umbrage with the Olympic Bridge Club and tournament in New York, and protested again the use of the word for the "Workers Olympiad" in Antwerp.

In 1947 the IOC president reported that the International Chess Federation had agreed to stop using the term Olympiad. 

This didn't last however as in the February 15, 1959, edition of the Olympic Bulletin, the Chess Federation was denounced for its "pompously entitled Chess Olympiad." The Bulletin noted that the IOC had not been successful on this occasion, and "as far as any candidature of the chess federation as an 'Olympic sport' is concerned, the result would be a check and checkmate at that."

(Interestingly enough the official IOC site www.olympic.org, in November 2000 proudly heralded the organization of the 34th Chess Olympiad by the Turkish National Olympic Committee. Has the IOC gone soft?) 

In 1950 an Austrian group was planning a "Musical Olympiad" to be held each year in Salzburg. The IOC decided to release a statement reading that the Austrians had no right to use the term Olympiad and "evidently do not know the real meaning of it." 

The 1951 Pan-American Games, a games given "patronage" by the IOC, caused an uproar over the use of the Olympic flame and Olympic oath which were only supposed to be used at the Olympic Games. Organizers assured the IOC that the oath had been adapted and the flame had been lit at the Acropolis, not Olympia and was not the "holy flame from Olympia."

In 1970, the IOC still had concerns to the point of issuing a circular letter to the NOCs to protect the Olympic Flag, rings and Olympic name, going so far as to say that the NOCs could use the Olympic rings only in black and white. The symbol of the Olympic rings in Color could only be used by the IOC. (minutes of the IOC session, Amsterdam 1970)

In late 1976 the IOC wrote to the Stoke Mandeville Games organizers, who had called their games in 1976 in Toronto the "TorontOlympiad" and "Olympics for the Disabled."  With the IOC's objection, the Stoke Mandeville organizers agreed to abide by the wishes of the IOC.

For several editions the movement had used in various forms, "Olympics for the Paralyzed" and "Olympics for the Disabled." in describing the events that would eventually become the Paralympic Games. The para- according to the organizers at the time coming from the beginning of the word paralyzed, not para-, as in "parallel to the Olympics", as a common modern myth purports, the first several editions being exclusively for paralyzed athletes. The IOC of course objected, and the word Paralympic (used in some contexts as far back as 1951), was agreed upon in February of 1985, with the Paralympic movement agreeing never to use the word Olympic to describe its events.

The first "Transplant Olympics," organized by British transplant surgeon Maurice Slapak, was held in Portsmouth, England in 1978. Approximately 100 kidney transplant recipients, representing over a dozen countries, gathered in Olympic fashion. In subsequent years, the Transplant Olympics were renamed the World Transplant Games.

The Huntsman World Senior Games were inaugurated in 1987 as the World Senior Olympics, but were made to change their name to the World Senior Games the following year.

Various Police and Fire Olympics have been asked to refrain from using the word Olympic to describe their events.

The argument that the IOC allows events to be called "Rat Olympics", "Beer Olympics" or "Tank Olympics" is simple to refute. Under the law, events have to be similar enough that they would be confused; a borrowing of reputation.  Beer Olympics and Rat Olympics are not international multi-sport competitions, so the IOC has no claim that they can be confused with the Olympic Games, whereas there is obvious confusion with other multi-sport competitions.

The case involving the Gay Games (International Olympic Committee vs. San Francisco Arts and Athletics, 781 F. 2d 733) was decided in January of 1986.

So what about the Special Olympics? The Special Olympics were begun by Eunice Kennedy Shriver in 1968. The use of the word Olympic by her organization was addressed by the USOC in 1971. At that time the USOC gave its approval for the Special Olympics to be the exception to the rule and the only organization outside the Olympic movement with permission to use the word Olympic. This permission would be expanded in 1988 when the IOC recognized and endorsed the Special Olympics movement.

In this context the lawsuit between the USOC and the Gay Games over the use of the term "Gay Olympics" in the early 80s becomes just one of a long list of instances in which the Olympic movement has asked organizations to reserve the use of the word Olympic for the Olympic Games.

New Hosts Announced

Saint- Tropez on the French Riviera has been selected as the site for the 20th edition of the World Medical Games, June 26 - July 3, 1999. Paris/Ile de France. France will also host the 1999 World Corporate Games. The first ever Pan-Armenian Games are planned for August-September of 1999 in Erevan, Armenia, and Beirut, Lebanon has been awarded the second edition of the West Asian Games in the year 2001.

October Schedule