Politics in Sports: Could Exercising the Olympic “Nuclear Option” Save Humanity?

EDITORIAL, 9 Feb 2026

#937 | Marilyn Langlois – TRANSCEND Media Service

How can one take a straight, razor-sharp steel blade, pair it with a cold, rock-hard, lifeless surface, and create an explosion of gracefully curving, joyfully passionate, life-affirming beauty?

Watch 1988 Olympic gold medalist Brian Boitano do just that on an Alaskan glacier.  Clip here.

First, you need to attach the blades to a pair of well-constructed boots.  Place the feet of a weak, anxious, fearful, ailing or injured person into shabby or ill-fitting boots, and bruises, broken bones, demoralization, humiliation and anger will inevitably result.  The feet of someone young or inexperienced but eager and optimistic may yield a short-lived rush of exhilarating motions punctuated by intermittent hard landings.

But to reach the pinnacle of athletic prowess infused with sublime artistic expression requires harmonious integration of body, mind and spirit in a person who is healthy, fit, well-trained, disciplined, creative and supported by a community of family, friends, coaches and fellow skaters.

Imagine the would-be skater as the whole of the human family, and the boots as some semblance of framework for co-existence, such as the UN Charter.  It’s clear that in our current condition we’re in for a lot more bruises, pain and catastrophic injuries, with occasional fleeting bursts of resistance-fueled coherence here and there.  When one leg insists on taking control, saying to hell with the other leg, the arms, the brain, lungs and heart, well, what do you expect?!

The 2026 winter Olympic games have just opened in Milan and Cortina, Italy, offering a gaping peephole into the blatant hypocrisy of lofty Olympic ideals of “placing 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,” and reflecting the broader disarray persistently plaguing our world.

Four years ago, the winter Olympics unfolded in Beijing with a very different backdrop.  On its eve, Russia and China issued an unprecedented statement of cooperation and partnership.  Russia’s Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine, prompted by NATO threats on its border and unrelenting attacks on ethnic Russians in Donbass, had not yet commenced.  Many still viewed the summer and winter Olympic games as an opportunity to escape from all the discord, warfare and human rights abuses that afflict so many, and enjoy peak performances by athletes from all over the world in friendly and sportsmanlike competition.

We had occasionally been treated to rare glimpses of hope for future peace and repair, such as when the athletes from both North and South Korea marched in together in the opening ceremonies of the 2000 summer Olympics in Sydney and the 2018 winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

Some rough spots and selective boycotts had also emerged along the way, allowing geopolitics to mar the brotherly spirit of the games.   Doping scandals disproportionately and unfairly aimed at Russia and China cast a long shadow over the sports, as documented by Rick Sterling here and here.

Following their tenuous alliance during World War II, US leadership and elites (with the possible exception of President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated for breaking ranks) have viewed the Soviet Union, and later Russia, as a supreme adversary to be demonized at every opportunity.  In the world of international sports, this emerged via dubious claims of systemic use of illegal performance enhancing drugs, casting aspersions on the host of the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

Subsequently, carefully vetted Russian athletes were grudgingly allowed to compete, but all displays of the Russian flag next to athletes’ names and playing the Russian national anthem for gold medal winners was strictly forbidden.  In Pyeongchang 2018, the flagless designation “Olympic Athletes from Russia” (OAR) was affixed to their names, followed in Tokyo 2021 and Beijing 2022 by “Russian Olympic Committee” (ROC).

Once the SMO in Ukraine was launched 4 days after the Beijing Olympics ended, the penalties escalated.  Now Russia had to be severely punished by the patently pro-Western International Olympic Committee (IOC).  Not only was Russia punished, but also its ally Belarus, which viewed the Ukraine intervention as necessary for its own security and a defense of the ethnic Russian population of Donbass seeking separation from Ukraine, and supported it.

The holier-than-thou, virtue-signaling IOC introduced a new nomenclature to further tarnish the image of these two pariah states, simply erasing them from the Olympic family.  Beginning in Paris 2024 and continuing now in Milan Cortina 2026, the term “AIN” has emerged.  Any potentially qualifying individual athlete (but no pairs or teams!) holding a Russian or Belarussian passport may now apply for a few limited slots in the Olympics as an AIN:  “Athlète Individuel Neutre”  (French for “Individual Neutral Athlete” – remember the good ol’ days when French was lingua franca of the world’s elites?).

In the past, Russia has sent around 200 athletes to each winter Olympics.  Only 13 Russian and 7 Belarussian AIN’s are being allowed to compete in Milan Cortina 2026, all subjected to invasive infringement of free speech rights.  AIN applicants are screened for a commitment to respect the Olympic Charter, including “the peace mission of the Olympic Movement”.  They must be cleared by independent review to make sure they have not voiced any support for the war in Ukraine and are not affiliated with Russia’s military.  No athletes from other countries are similarly vetted based on their political opinions.

One can debate whether Russia’s invasion of Ukraine justifies banishing it and Belarus completely from Olympic competitions.  I’m certainly not giving a blanket free pass to Russia, which recently threw Palestine under the bus by failing to veto the disastrous UN Security Council resolution that essentially hands Gaza over to the current US president. It then offered to pay $1 billion to join (i.e. legitimize) his oxymoronic Board of Peace, which is more like a Board of Final Solution to complete the ethnic cleansing and eliminate any chance of a viable Palestinian state.

The real elephant in the room, however, is this:  Who was not banned from the Olympics?  Why was Israel not banished for committing genocide in Gaza over the last 2-1/2 years, along with decades of brutally occupying Palestinian territories?  In 2024 the Palestinian Olympic Committee pointed to the IOC’s double standards by failing to take action against Israel, yet the complaint went nowhere.  If Belarus can be banished for supporting Russia’s actions in Ukraine, why isn’t the US banished for supporting and funding Israel’s atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank, not to mention support for Israel attacking Iran and murdering top officials and scientists there last June?

Imagine if the IOC had applied the same standards used to condemn Russia today to the US over the last 80 years for its repeated belligerence that flagrantly undermines Olympic values of harmonious development, peaceful societies and preservation of human dignity.   What if the IOC had had the courage to ban US participation in the Olympics during times of unprovoked US aggression against Vietnam, Central America, Chile, Haiti, Yugoslavia, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria?

Why is the current IOC turning a blind eye to the US bragging about repeatedly committing murder on the high seas with zero due process, and kidnapping the sovereign head of state in Venezuela?  Or openly threatening to wage war against Iran and stepping up actions to strangle the people of Cuba?  These three countries, by the way, have done nothing to pose any harm or danger to the US.  Has the IOC no shame?

The US takes great pride in its Olympic athletes and relishes every opportunity to hear the Star-Spangled Banner play while the Stars and Stripes are raised at a medal ceremony.  What if the belligerent would-be hegemon was finally held accountable and the IOC exercised the Olympic “nuclear option”?  That is: no more US flag-bearing athletes or medals until its war-mongering, extrajudicial murders, land grabs, regime change operations, state-sponsored terrorism, rejection of arms control and proliferation of foreign military bases come to an end?

That might be just the motivator needed to induce the US to rehabilitate itself into a respectful, fair and trustworthy player on the global stage.  It could open much needed space for the human family to harness social health, productive fitness, conflict resolution training, cooperative discipline, and boundless creativity within supportive communities to achieve harmonious integration that can send us on a spectacular trajectory of healing and fulfillment.

Until then, our current bruising reality continues.

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Marilyn Langlois is a member of the TRANSCEND Media Service Editorial Committee and of TRANSCEND USA West Coast. She is a volunteer community organizer and international solidarity activist based in Richmond, California.  A co-founder of the Richmond Progressive Alliance, member of Haiti Action Committee and Board member of the International Center for 9/11 Justice, she is retired from previous employment as a teacher, secretary, administrator, mediator and community advocate.

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 9 Feb 2026.

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