Answers: A Political History of the Winter Olympics
The Beijing Winter Olympics has come to an end amid strict coronavirus restrictions and a diplomatic boycott by several Western nations over human rights concerns surrounding Xinjiang. India’s diplomats also stayed away as the hosts honoured a military commander involved in the worst border clash between the two sides in decades. More here.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin was the leading foreign presence at the opening ceremony, hailing ‘unprecedented’ ties and presenting a united front with Beijing in his confrontation with the U.S. and NATO over Ukraine. All five presidents from the ex-Soviet Central Asian states were also in attendance.
The Beijing Olympics also saw U.S.-born athletes competing for China thrust into geopolitical rivalry with questions raised about star performer Eileen Gu’s citizenship status. There was also the interview given by Peng Shuai, with a Chinese Olympic official present, in which the tennis player denied leveling sexual assault allegations against a senior Chinese Communist Party figure.
Answers
1) In 2015 Beijing narrowly defeated another city 44-40 in the International Olympic Committee vote on the Winter Games host. Which city lost out? In the light of recent events having that city as host would have been a public relations nightmare for the IOC.
Almaty, Kazakhstan. More on the January violence in Kazakhstan and its aftermath here, here and here.
The worst anti-government unrest in 30 years of independence was the starting point for my previous quiz on Central Asia here. The questions include Kazakhstan’s switch from the Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet. The IOC approved a rare name change to Qazaqstan reflecting the new Kazakh Latin alphabet. The team made a sartorial splash with its uniforms at the opening ceremony. More here.
2) Reflecting increasing concerns about the Olympics and cost overruns especially in Western countries, voters in 2013 rejected two European bidding plans for 2022. One was a referendum in the Swiss canton that included bidder Davos-St. Moritz. Name the other European city whose voters rejected an Olympic bid. This city would have become the first to host both the Summer and Winter Games instead of Beijing if its bid had succeeded.
3) A traditional dress worn by a performer representing an ethnic minority at the Beijing opening ceremony sparked accusations by another country of cultural appropriation. It two main presidential candidates were quick to condemn China. About 2 million people from this ethnic group live in China. Which country/ethnic group?
South Korea. More here, here and here.
4) Which country made its first Winter Games appearance in 1980 following a deal with the IOC the previous year? Athletes from the rival claimant were barred from taking part in Lake Placid, New York under their preferred name after losing a case against the IOC at a Swiss court.
China (People’s Republic of China). In 1979 the IOC formally recognised mainland China while Taiwan’s athletes were asked to compete under the name ‘Chinese Taipei’ instead of the ‘Republic of China’. The Taiwan contingent was barred from the Lake Placid Games for insisting on the name ‘Republic of China’. More here, here and here. Taiwan reached an agreement with the IOC in 1981 and has competed as ‘Chinese Taipei’ ever since.
5) To obtain U.S. federal funding for the Lake Placid Games in 1980, organisers had to ensure the Olympic Village was set up for long-lasting use once the Olympics was over. What was the Olympic Village converted into just six months after the event? Many visiting contingents were unhappy with the rooms that were geared towards future use. There was growing demand in the U.S. for more sites for this purpose through the 1970s with significant bipartisan support. It was also seen as an employment opportunity in a rural region.
The Olympic Village funded by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons was converted into a prison that is still in operation. Sports Illustrated wrote in 1979 here about the prison plans and the disquiet among many participating countries. More here and here. As crime rates rose through the 1960s and 70s the U.S. ended up having the highest recorded incarceration rate in the world. Though incarceration rates have fallen in recent years, the U.S. still jails a higher proportion of its population than any other country.
6) 1984 marked the first time the Winter Olympics was held in a communist country. Name the host city (Hint: The Olympics took place 70 years after an incident in the city with huge global ramifications)
Sarajevo, then in Yugoslavia. More here and here. The Winter Olympics in 1984 was seen as a way to revitalise a city scarred by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in 1914, which set in motion the First World War.
7) U.S. businessman Alexander Cushing ran a tiny ski resort that struggled to survive amid erratic winter weather. He decided to pitch his resort for the Winter Olympics after reading a newspaper article about another city’s bid. Initially seeking publicity to revive his flailing resort, Cushing commented that “I had no interest in getting the Games than the man in the moon”. His underdog bid received local support and political endorsements. In his marketing pitch, he promised a private village for the competitors, a first at the Winter Games. The IOC chose the resort ahead of Austria’s Innsbruck by a two-vote margin. Name the location and year.
Squaw Valley, California in 1960. More here, here and here. The name of the site was changed to Palisades Tahoe in 2021, one among the many changes as places and sports teams moved away from names deemed derogatory by Native Americans.
8) Who was appointed to head the Pageantry Committee that organised the opening and closing ceremonies for the Winter Games mentioned in Question 7? His company designed snow sculptures which were placed across the venue. The Games with its telegenic ceremonies was a major milestone for live television coverage.
Walt Disney. More here, here and here.
9) Which successful businessman and failed politician at the time was brought in to head the organising committee for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics following a bribery scandal? His turnaround role at the Games became a big part of his political resume, with the sporting spectacle hailed as a commercial and symbolic success in the wake of 9/11. Shortly after the Olympics he announced a run for governor that turned out to be successful. Who?
Mitt Romney. More here and here. Soon after the Olympics, Romney announced what turned out to be a successful run for Massachusetts Governor. He lost to Barack Obama in the 2012 U.S. presidential election and is now a Republican senator from Utah.
10) Which Winter Games saw two countries fielding a united team only in the women’s ice hockey event? And name the two countries that competed separately in all other events.
North and South Korea at the Pyeongchang Games in 2018. More here
11) Which countries took part as separate entities for the first time at the Grenoble Winter Games in 1968? They were back as one team from the Albertville Games in 1992.
East and West Germany. More here
12) This country beat the Soviet Union 5-4 in a stunning upset in ice hockey at the 1968 Grenoble Games (it ended up with silver eventually while the Soviets clinched gold). This politically charged win was followed by a major crackdown in the country later that year. The next year in the world championship the team beat the Soviets twice, leading to another round of defiant celebrations. Some of the gatherings evolved into anti-Soviet protests. Which country?
Czechoslovakia. More here, here and here. The 1969 world championship wins were the catalyst for what was known as the Czechoslovak Hockey Riots as protesters attacked Soviet targets. Another crackdown followed and the reformists in the government who had survived the Soviet military intervention the previous year were purged. More here and here. The Czech Republic took the Olympic gold in men’s ice hockey for the first time in 1998 beating Russia 1-0 in Nagano, Japan. Slovakia, the other half of the former Czechoslovakia won its first ice hockey medal in Beijing clinching bronze.
13) This 4-3 victory by an underdog U.S. team at the Lake Placid Olympics in 1980 over the Soviet Union was described by Sports Illustrated as ‘the greatest sports moment of the 20th century’ (from a U.S. perspective). What is this sporting triumph intertwined with Cold War chest-thumping known as?
Miracle on Ice. More here and here. The ice hockey team members were chosen to light the cauldron the next time the U.S. hosted the Winter Games at Salt Lake City in 2002.
14) This country’s dominance at a team sport was challenged by the Soviet Union in the Olympics. It withdrew from all international competition including the world championships and the Olympics from 1970 to 1977, arguing that rules restricting participation only to amateurs gave the Soviet-led Communist bloc an unfair advantage. Name the country and sport.
Canada and ice hockey. More here.
15) Born in Poland in 1939 in a town that is now in Lithuania, Jeremy Bujakowski was the first from which country to take part in the Winter Olympics? He was the lone competitor from this country in the 1964 and 1968 Games.
India. More here
16) Grigory Rodchenkov, a key figure at the Sochi Olympics, featured in the Oscar-winning documentary Icarus. What was revealed by Rodchenkov?
The Russian state-sponsored doping scandal. Grigory Rodchenkov was in charge of the laboratory that handled drug testing at the 2014 Sochi Olympics but later became a whistleblower and moved to the U.S. More about Rodchenkov and the documentary Icarus here. A timeline of Russia’s doping scandal including Kamila Valieva in Beijing here. How athletes from Russia are competing in the Olympics despite a ban on Russia is explained here.
17) This U.S. city won the right to host the 1976 Winter Games. Skyrocketing costs and environmental concerns led to a public backlash. A statewide referendum in 1972 blocked the use of new taxes or state funds to support the staging of the Olympics. The city pulled out, the only time the host backed out in Olympic history. Which city?
18) This innovation was devised for the Hollywood film As the Earth Turns in 1934. Its first Olympic use was at the Lake Placid Winter Games in 1980. Sochi in 2014 relied on it to the extent of 80 percent, Pyeongchang in 2018 90 percent and now in Beijing it’s 100 percent. What are we talking about?
Artificial snow. More here, here and here.
This question was inspired by the video below from my former colleague Emily Siu for the Wall Street Journal
Last year I had done a quiz on ‘How Olympics and Politics Intersect’ focusing on the Summer Games. The answers are here.