Ah, politics and the Olympic Games. What is it about one that brings out the other so readily? This past week it’s been about Iran, for a change.
According to the London Guardian’s diplomatic editor Julian Borger on February 28, Tehran officials have lodged a formal letter of complaint to organisers of the London 2012 Summer Games.
Because of the logo.
The logo, people.
Sure, it’s jagged, like a badly-excised cut-out from a tangram packet done by a scissors-wielding monkey. It’s also variously been called a throwback to punk, Lisa Simpson doing something slightly sexually explicit and a muddled swastika. But to the Iranians, the day-glo pink 2-0-1-2 spells Zion.
Therefore, ergo, it must mean that the London Games committee are pro-Israel.
As Borger points out, this complaint has been made four years after the logo was first unveiled to the public, and now Iran has said it will refuse to travel to London for the event if the design is not altered. Right… Remember when the five multi-coloured continental-depicting rings were enough to worry about?
No, it’s an Israeli-backed conspiracy, say Iran, which, according to the Guardian report, is asking for the London logo’s designers to be “confronted” about their work.
“Using the word Zion in the logo of the 2012 Olympic Games is a disgracing action and against the Olympics’ valuable mottos,” the Iranian Student News Agency is quoted as saying.
“There is no doubt that negligence of the issue from your side may affect the presence of some countries in the Games, especially Iran which abides by commitment to the values and principles.”
It’s nice to know the Iranians will stick to the non-political ideals of the Olympics by making a political statement out of it.
As far as the IOC is concerned, it’s a total non-issue. 2012 means 2012, nothing more. The English were stunned that there hadn’t been any complaint made in the preceding three years.
Still, an earlier Guardian writer, arts blogger Jon Glancey, had already made their own complaint on June 5, 2007, saying the London logo “fails the Olympics spirit completely – it’s component parts are broken apart, while the Olympics are all about athletes, spectators and nations joining together”.
“The Olympics should exist to raise our collective hopes, expectations and sights. This logo, though, is one of the saddest modern sights of all,” Glancey added.
But what if there really was some deeper, mysterious inkling going on behind those expensively-brainstormed slabs of kitsch-yness?
If – and I stress it’s a rather large if – this is a conspiracy against one country, for how long have the IOC been allowing such things? A cursory glance online offers some semi-serious answers…
Was the bronzed discus-man on the posters for the 1920 Games ready to slice the spire off Antwerp’s cathedral? Or a similar styled print in 1948 had possibly the same faceless Auton ready to smash Big Ben? Did the runner on the Amsterdam 1928 poster have a bad case of the runs?
Was that a chainsaw cutting through the Olympic rings at Helsinki 1952? Hands clasped in Red prayer at Moscow 1980? Heck – makes you wonder what the likes of Kim Jong-Il might make of the mobious-strip-like logo for Rio 2016… Imperialistic, no doubt.
This could have been going on in football, too, you know. Was the bloke in the Uruguay 1930 poster actually playing volleyball instead of saving a goal?
Human ten-pin bowling seemed the go, judging by the print for Italia 1934. More aforementioned Soviet-ish hand-raising at Argentina 1978.
Badly-executed test-run for 3D football at Italia 90?
The discovery of a new planet in the solar system, that just happens to be the exact same size and shape of a football, found on the eve of France 98?
The possibilities are endless… If any of them were true, but of course they’re not. Like the Iranian claim, it’s rubbish. But at least it gets everyone talking slightly earlier about London 2012.
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