Was China really the Right Country to host the Olympics?

There has been a lot of controversy regarding China hosting the Winter Olympics this year. Many believe that it wasn’t the right place to host and many don’t have an opinion on it. However, I believe that the Winter Olympics should not have been held in Beijing or China for many reasons. To begin with, The Chinese Communist Party or CCP has a monopoly over the media within mainland China and throughout the entire world. I think that the Olympic Games being held in Beijing approved the corruption within the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for a variety of reasons. Strict media regulations within China already limit global events capability in effectively broadcasting mainstream events and footage. In order to promote sports and events within the Olympics, many of the athletes turned to social media such as Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. Not only do these platforms allow them to spread their names and promote sponsors, but they also encourage people to tune in to the end of the event to follow their favorite athlete. The single-party regime within China has been violating human rights for centuries, which makes many believe that China was not a proper choice for the international Olympic Games to take place. If the IOC really was an impartial party, they would have seen the amount of corruption inside of China regarding working wages, working conditions, obscure propaganda for the communist regime, gender inequality, and ethnic cleansing.

Additionally, it makes sense that most of the events of the Winter Olympics take place in cold snowy places. However, the Winter Olympics in Beijing consists of entirely man-made snow mountains and no natural fresh powder. According to the claims of Human Rights violations, this should be enough to cancel China’s eligibility to host the Winter Olympics. This seems to be a common trend within the IOC. Looking back at past Olympic Games, many of the other hosting countries used fake snow. The 2018 Olympics consisted of almost eighty to ninety percent man-made snow, and the 2014 games also had a similar percentage. Of course, it should depend on what the majority of athletes prefer, and many of them don’t mind or care about fake snow.  But many enjoy the real and natural fresh power. These athletes claim that it is a more consistent texture and better for high-speed racing. However, I personally believe, as a skier, that it breaks the tradition of the typical Alpine natural snow, which was found in the early 1900s Olympic Games. 

Finally, The IOC (based in Lausanne, Switzerland) had a major influence on hosting the Winter Olympics in China. The Committee is an independent non-government organization that claims political neutrality. They are known to claim neutrality from countries such as the US, UK, and Australia. These countries show the political statements that can occur on the world stage and the messages these actions are determined to prove. No international diplomats from any of the listed countries were at the Olympics in Beijing this year. However, the closely allied countries with China, such as Russia, were surely present and will be present for the foreseeable future. The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, was front and center at the opening games in Beijing just a few weeks ago. It seems that these Games were more about countries making a public announcement of where they lie politically with China and not about athletes working hard to become the best in their field and represent their respective countries, which is the overall goal and hope of the Olympics. Overall, I believe that China wasn’t the right country to host the Olympics. There were many other countries that deserved it way more.