The Olympic Games have ended, with the Paralympic Games starting on September 7 and lasting until September 18.
Athletes have returned home, some will be celebrated, others will soon be forgotten. But there is something no one can take away from them – they are, and will always be, Olympians.
What is so special about the Olympics and what significance do they have for South Africa besides the participation of our athletes?
What many do not know is that the understanding of the Olympics is to appreciate and respect diversity in all forms, including race, gender, sexual orientation and disability. The goal of Olympism, according to the Olympic Charter, is “to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity”.
The idea started in ancient Greece with an Olympic Games in 776 BC and with the Olympic Truce being respected. It was revived by Pierre de Coubertin, the French historian and educator and father of the modern Olympic Games, in 1894.
South Africa has had a special relationship regarding the notion of Olympism and Olympic Truce, the ancient form of sport and peace.
Nelson Mandela was one of the most avid supporters of Olympism, the Olympic values as well as of the Olympic Truce. He even received the honorary citizenship of the Municipality of Ancient Olympia in 1983 while imprisoned on Robben Island.
Unknown to the majority of South Africans and the world, in the Robben Island Prison, during apartheid, while the country was banned from the Olympic Games, sport and recreation and the Summer Games were used by the prisoners as a vehicle to unite people and promote values of respect, integrity, dignity, team-work and fair play as an integral part of a holistic person. The rare leisure activities became a route to escape into normality and a place of triumph of the human spirit, body and soul.
Numerous former prisoners such as Steve Tshwete, Tokyo Sexwale, Phila Nkayi and Naphtali Mamana, Digkang Moseneke, Murphy Marobe and Sbu Ndebele were involved in the Olympic Summer Games on Robben Island.
When Nelson Mandela became South Africa’s first democratically elected president on May 10, 1994, Madiba, aware of the political impact of sport in the country, intentionally and actively used sport as a tool to transform and unify a divided society. In fact, he may have been the first global leader who purposely employed sport as a vehicle to unite his people and to redefine South Africa’s international image.
In 1997, he received the International Fair Play Award and in 2004, he supported Cape Town’s Olympic bid, carrying the Olympic Flame outside his former prison cell on Robben Island as part of its relay across the globe. It was the first time the Olympic Torch had been in South Africa on its ceremonial journey around the world to Athens.
He would be pleased with the performance of athletes such as Luvo Manyonga, Wayde van Niekerk, Sunette Viljoen, Henri Schoeman, Chad le Cos, Cameron van der Burgh, Shaun Keeling, Lawrence Brittain, Dylan Sage, Sabelo Senatla and Caster Semenya for winning medals, but also proud of all of our athletes who took part and returning without a medal.
He would also be proud of all our youth who are involved in sport – showing their talents at home, playing together in friendship and celebrating unity in diversity on and off the field – a term he used many times. IOC President Thomas Bach used the same term in Rio as one of the aims of the Olympic Movement and the IOC.
We remember Mandela’s speech at the “Signatures for the Truce” event in Athens on June 19, 2002, where he maintained that “sport and the example and influence of leading athletes can make an impact in tackling some of our serious social problems.
These include the restoration of the culture of teaching and learning in our schools, and the reintegration of the so-called marginalised youth into the mainstream of society. Likewise, with the problems of violence and drug abuse.
The Olympic Truce to be observed during the Olympic Games eloquently demonstrates the positive influence sport can make. I heartily welcome the central themes of the Games: global peace, strengthening of family ties and general upliftment of young people. I know the message will touch a chord in all our hearts”. (Mandela 2002).
One of Mandela’s legacies is that he has always been a champion for peace and a strong supporter for sport and the Olympic movement, and patron of the Olympic ideals including the Olympic Truce.
On June 15, 2002, the Greek government invited Nelson Mandela to officiate at the Olympic Truce event in Athens, where he said: “The Olympic Games represent one of the most evocative moments of celebrating our unity as human beings in pursuit of noble ideals. Paramount among those ideals is the quest for global peace. The Olympic Truce Initiative is a highly commendable effort to remind us of that objective behind the Olympic Games and to give concrete substance to the ideal of peace…”
Significantly, the legacy of South Africa in this regard continues as the country holds the chair for Sport and Peace for the United Nation’s International Working (UN IWG) since 2011 as the only country from the global South.
It is also the first time an African country heads an UN IWG .
How can we show the world we honour our legacy and history and the responsibility of this important role?
The IOC promotes the notion of becoming a better person through playing sport, enjoying sport and living according the Olympic values, which are excellence (be the best you can be), fair play, respect, friendship, joy of effort and balance between body, will and mind.
Let’s embrace our athletes, Olympic and Paralympic, in the spirit of Olympism and enable them to become the role models for our next generations of youth and sport leaders.
Let’s engage with the Olympic Values, with the meaning of Olympism and let’s make a commitment to make a real difference in the lives of our youth, our families, our community and our society.
Initiatives such as coaching development and Olympic Values Education training by the South African based Foundation for Sport, Development and Peace in collaboration with the IOC and UWW to 54 MOD Centre coaches and the upcoming International Sport and Peace Conference in Cape Town from September 14 to 16 are opportunities for us to work together to achieve this true meaning of Olympism for all of us.
Let’s embrace the Olympic spirit, let’s celebrate the achievement of our sportsmen and women as a victory for a big idea and let’s build on it with value education and proper physical education in our schools as an inspiration for our youth .
* Dr Marion Keim is an IOC member of the Olympic Education Commission, the chairperson of the Foundation for Sport, Development and Peace and an associate professor and director Interdisciplinary Centre for Sports Science and Development, UWC