Jordan Visina
The Olympic Games have long been portrayed as a sanctuary from global politics where international cooperation briefly eclipses geopolitical conflict. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres recently stated that the Olympics “are an excellent moment to symbolize peace and respect for international law and international cooperation.”[1] Yet, history suggests otherwise. From Cold War boycotts to modern “individual neutral athlete” regimes,[2] the Olympics have consistently reflected the political tensions of their time. What has changed since the 1980 Summer Olympics is not the presence of geopolitics in sport, but the legal and institutional mechanisms through which it is managed.
The 1980 Moscow Games marked one of the most overt intersections of international politics and sport. In response to the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, the United States led a boycott joined by sixty-four countries.[3] Athletes were barred from competition not because of individual conduct, but because of their governments’ foreign policy decisions.[4] The boycott made no attempt to disguise its political purpose; it was a collective sanction, openly deployed as sport.[5] The Olympics were used as a forum for political condemnation, exemplified by President Carter’s “attempt to use the Olympics as a diplomatic lever” to impose reputational and diplomatic costs on the Soviet Union for its invasion.[6]
In contrast, contemporary Olympic governance relies on a more subtle approach. In the lead-up to the 2024 Summer Olympics following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian and Belarusian athletes were permitted to compete only under “neutral” status without national flags, anthems, or official symbols.[7] Rather than excluding entire delegations, the International Olympic Committee framed participation as an individualized assessment,[8] emphasizing that athletes should not be punished for the actions of their governments.[9] However, institutional entanglement is not limited to questions of athlete representation. Nearly fifteen percent of National Olympic Committees are led by individuals with formal ties to their national governments, raising broader questions about the political autonomy within the Olympic Movement itself.[10]
At first glance, this shift from nationwide boycotts to athlete-specific assessments appears to reflect a more rights-respecting and depoliticized approach. Allowing athletes to compete as neutrals seems consistent with principles of individual responsibility and non-discrimination, but this raises its own legal and normative concerns. Whereas the IOC once framed neutrality as a spatial limitation on political expression,[11] the current “neutral athlete” framework conditions participation on athletes’ non-representation of their state and their compliance with the Olympic Charter, including a requirement that they have not actively supported the war in Ukraine.[12] Stripping athletes of national identity is not a neutral act; it functions as a symbolic sanction that transforms political accountability into a condition of participation. Athletes are thus placed in the position of competing only if they publicly detach themselves from their state,[13] blurring the line between individual autonomy and coerced political expression.
This evolution reflects a broader institutional recalibration rather than a retreat from political engagement. Where the 1980 boycott relied on state action and collective withdrawal, modern Olympic governance internalizes political conflict through rules and eligibility criteria. Politics are no longer expressed through absence, but through controlled participation. The result is not an apolitical Olympics, but a legalized and individualized form of political discipline.
From an international law perspective, this shift is significant. The neutral athlete regime mirrors trends in global governance that favor individualized sanctions and depoliticized rhetoric. It raises difficult questions about due process, freedom of expression, and the extent to which private international institutions exercise quasi-public authority.
Ultimately, the Olympics have not escaped geopolitics since 1980. They have adapted to it. The move from boycotts to neutrality does not eliminate political contestation but reframes it. In doing so, the Olympic movement offers a microcosm of how international law increasingly manages conflict not by resolving it, but by regulating its visibility.
[1] Paolo Masrolilli, Guterres: World Destabilized if Law of Power Replaces Power of Law, Vatican News (Feb. 5, 2026 at 10:42 ET), https://www.vaticannews.va/en/world/news/2026-02/antonio-guterres-interview-repubblica-geopolitics.html.
[2] Individual Neutral Athletes at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, Int’l Olympics Comm. (Jan. 29, 2026), https://www.olympics.com/ioc/milano-cortina-2026-individual-neutral-athletes.
[3] Scott Rosner & Deborah Low, The Efficacy of Olympic Bans and Boycotts on Effectuating International Political and Economic Change, 11 Tex. Rev. Ent. & Sports L. 27, 49-50 (2009).
[4] Id.
[5] Id. at 46-53.
[6] Id. at 47; Tony Brown’s Journal: 1980 Olympics: Lost Gold (Special) (PBS television broadcast, aired 1980).
[7] Maureen A. Weston, Olympic Dreams Dashed: Arbitrating Seconds, Grams, Identity, and Time at the Paris Olympic Games 2024, 25 Nev. L.J. 257, 275 (2025).
[8] Individual Neutral Athletes at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, supra note 2.
[9] Carlos Pulleiro Méndez & Fernando Gutiérrez-Chico, The State, the Athlete, the Symbolic Exclusion: The Ban of Russian and Belarusian Athletes from the Olympic Movement, Sport In Soc’y (Nov. 11, 2024), at 13 (stating that Russian and Belarusian athletes “did not start” and “are not responsible for” the war and should not be “victims of policies of their own government”) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17430437.2024.2424548 [https://doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2024.2424548].
[10] One in Seven Olympic Committees Are Directly Linked to Governments, Play The Game (June 8, 2017), https://www.playthegame.org/news/one-in-seven-olympic-committees-are-directly-linked-to-governments/.
[11] See Antonio Di Marco, Athletes’ Freedom of Expression: The Relative Political Neutrality of Sport, 21 Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 620, 636 (2021) (discussing comments by Thomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee, during the 2014 Sochi Games stating that athletes “enjoy the freedom of speech” and “are absolutely free” to make political statements during press conferences).
[12] See Statement on Solidarity with Ukraine, Sanctions Against Russia and Belarus, and the Status of Athletes from These Countries, Int’l Olympics Comm. (Jan. 25, 2023), https://www.olympics.com/ioc/news/statement-on-solidarity-with-ukraine-sanctions-against-russia-and-belarus-and-the-status-of-athletes.
[13] Weston, supra note 7.