With all eyes on the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, hosted in the Ville Lumière, the stage for global geopolitics has once again been set under the limelight of the biggest sporting event in the world.

Historically, the Olympic Games have seen the battle of international affairs being disputed since its first editions. For a long time, sport was not interpreted as a political and social concept. It was only in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that this scenario was fundamentally remodeled, with the creation of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which led to the birth of the Olympic Games, the brainchild of French historian Pierre de Coubertin. It was with the inception of the games that the mutual influence between sport and international relations was officially initiated, which allowed major decision-makers to use sport in their favor, transforming it into an essential matter of power for states.

The 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, during Adolf Hitler's dictatorship, are one of the prime examples of how a government used sport as a foreign policy tool to achieve its respective national interests. The general idea behind the competition was to demonstrate and prove to the rest of the world that the Nazi government was primarily responsible for restructuring the country after World War I. The German government invested heavily in the competition, building huge arenas and producing arguably the first sports documentary in history, which was used as a media vehicle for Nazi propaganda around the world.

Another example was the boycott by the United States of the Moscow Olympics (1980) and the USSR of the Los Angeles Olympics (1984), respectively, which were full of symbolism referring to the Cold War conflict, considering that sport was precisely one of the factors of competition between countries. The 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing also served as an important vehicle of soft power for the People's Republic of China, which saw a rise in its international prestige after the event.

I could list a variety of examples of how international politics have played a role in the Olympic Games and vice versa. However, the idea here is to explore how Paris 2024 was already set to be a major theatre of le grand spectacle starring the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and its members, even before it started.

The speech made by former IOC president Avery Brundage after the terrorist attack at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, which ended up in the killing of eleven Israeli athletes, reflects the current era in which the Olympics take place today: “Sadly, the greater and more important the Olympic Games become, the more they are open to commercial, political, and now criminal pressure.”

Paris 2024 was hosted amidst pure geopolitical turmoil. The Israel-Hamas war, the Russian invasion in Ukraine, and even the current right-wing ascendancy during the EU countries’ elections. France’s political scene itself saw one of its most chaotic episodes right before the start of the games, with the government calling for a dissolution process of its national assembly for the first time in history. Emmanuel Macron publicly called for a political truce during the games—"Now" it’s the Olympics"—intending to temporarily put aside the governmental crisis that had taken over the country in the past few weeks.

Long before the start of the Paris Games, the IOC, a massive institution with great international power, had already started its diplomatic due diligence process, making sure that geopolitical paint would not be spilled onto the 2024 Olympic canvas.

Through the “Games Wide Open” slogan, Thomas Bach, president of the IOC, along with the French government, have jointly aligned more than 140 embassies to join the Terre de Jeux (Land of the Games) 2024 “celebration, legacy, and engagement” program. Additionally, Macron, accompanied by Ambassador for Sport Samuel Ducroquet, and many other French diplomats, welcomed around 160 ministers of sport and 120 heads of state and government for an official opening dinner.

Right before the ceremony, the French president also took advantage of having many international delegates to schedule a couple of bilateral meetings. Macron, clearly aiming for the record for the most political activity held at the Olympics by a nation’s leader, which belongs to Chinese President Xi Jinping, who organized 17 summits before the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. This move could be interpreted as a hypocritical approach by the French president, who not so long ago stated that sport should not be politicized, at the opening of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

On the side of the games themselves, the few Russian and Belarusian athletes who were not banned from the games did not attend the opening ceremony and didn’t see their national anthems being played nor their flags being raised, as they were imposed to compete as neutral athletes. As a response to that, the Russian government is now trying to circumvent these effects by hosting an upcoming edition of the Friendship Games, currently scheduled to take place in 2025.

Afghanistan was another country that drew attention at the Olympics due to its current political situation, following the Taliban's return to power in 2021. The globally unrecognized government has been facing scrutiny at international sporting events lately. Despite the Taliban's claims of supporting Afghan athletes, they forbid women from sports and restrict education and jobs for girls. The flag of the Republic, overthrown by the Taliban, was raised in Paris, but no Taliban representatives attended. Additionally, Afghanistan had five athletes on the Olympic refugee team (EOR).

Notoriously, the conflict between Israel and Hamas, sparked by the October 7 attack by the Palestinian Islamist group, has drawn global attention. In June, Jibril Rajoub, President of the Palestinian Olympic Committee, called for the Paris Olympics to spotlight the Gaza war and the Israeli occupation. He stressed that the Games are a chance to tell the world, "Enough is enough." Rajoub also expressed the desire to include athletes from Gaza in the Olympic team.

Apart from that, he criticized Israel's actions, citing the numerous deaths in Gaza, the destruction of sports facilities, and travel restrictions on Palestinian athletes. Despite the challenges, Rajoub celebrated Omar Ismail’s qualification in taekwondo and hoped six to eight athletes could compete, with potential IOC invitations for those who don’t qualify directly. Meanwhile, the IOC has not considered sanctions against Israel, and Yael Arad, President of the Israeli Olympic Committee, emphasized the focus on letting Israeli athletes compete as usual.

To conclude, as noted by Michel Foucault, sport is a social institution that, like art, war, or music, simply reflects the era in which it finds itself. Following a presidential impeachment, corruption scandals, contaminated swimming pools at Rio 2016, and then the pandemic scenario taking over Tokyo 2020, the IOC and its stakeholders were hungry for a well-hosted edition at its full capacity, as well as we, the fans. It can be argued that the 2024 Summer Olympic Games were a well-managed event overall and were able to feature today’s world geopolitics on the podium in great style.

The tone has now been set for Los Angeles 2028. The campaign has already started, in the most traditional containment fashion. American soft power at its best has been undermining LA’s strategy since its bidding process. We shall wait for the next chapters.