Pyeongchang 2018 – where sport and politics meet

From 9 to 25 February 2018, the 23rd Olympic Winter Games will take place in the South Korean city of Pyeongchang. For winter sports enthusiasts, the Olympic Winter Games are THE major event of this winter. However, the anticipation is dampened by doping bans and the shadow cast by neighbouring North Korea.

From a sporting perspective, Germany has mixed feelings. After Sochi, where German performances in sports such as biathlon were rather embarrassing, there is now hope for an improvement in the medal count. The results of the last world championships give reason for optimism. Anyone who has followed sports news even a little over the past year will be familiar with the names Laura Dahlmeier, Johannes Rydzek and Simon Schempp. Biathlete Dahlmeier became a five-time world champion for the first time in the history of biathlon, Nordic combined athlete Rydzek is a four-time world champion. Both have rightly been named athletes of the year 2017. Together with his team-mate Benedikt Doll, world champion Simon Schempp is the hope of the men in biathlon.

Both in ski jumping and in luge, it can be assumed that German athletes will not disappoint. Will Carina Vogt, the first Olympic champion in the history of women's ski jumping, also win the title in Pyeongchang? The season is still running rather mediocrely. The absence of Germany's best ski jumper Severin Freund following a cruciate ligament tear is annoying, but based on recent World Cup results, hopes can be placed on Richard Freitag and Andreas Wellinger. Who will be the top favourite for medals among the ski jumpers will also be shown at the Four Hills Tournament. Felix Loch, Natalie Geisenberger, Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt – these are the medal contenders among German lugers who won all medal races at the last Games. After Sochi, there is hope for a continuation of the successful athletes.

It will be tight in speed skating and – surprisingly – in alpine skiing. After no medals in Sochi for speed skaters, hopes are now pinned on Nico Ihle, Claudia Pechstein and Patrick Beckert. However, whether they are good enough to compete against, for example, strong Dutch athletes remains to be seen. Two German top favourites in alpine skiing, Felix Neureuther and Stefan Luitz, each suffer a cruciate ligament tear in quick succession and will therefore miss the entire remainder of the season – including Pyeongchang. The only realistic hope remaining is Viktoria Rebensburg among the women. Accordingly, great pressure will weigh on the Olympic champion in the giant slalom from Vancouver 2010.

With the 23rd Olympic Winter Games come the 12th Paralympic Games, which will also take place in Pyeongchang from 9 to 18 March 2018. After a second-place finish in the medal count in 2014, expectations are high. Five-time Olympic champion from Sochi Anna Schaffelhuber is also a top favourite for Pyeongchang. The mono-skier knows the expectations placed on her. The same must apply to Anna-Lena Forster, also a mono-skier and Schaffelhuber's biggest rival within the same team. The other sports offer hardly any great medal hopefuls, but often the rule is: surprises are not uncommon.

It is sad that Paralympic events rarely receive the same recognition. This is evident in awareness and viewing figures. Time to change that! Both events will be partly broadcast on television by the public broadcasters ARD, ZDF and Eurosport.

The motto of the Olympic Games is well known: taking part is what counts. This applies to athletes and spectators alike. It is worth tuning in, and not just for the well-known sports such as biathlon or alpine skiing, but also for the minor sports. When else do you see curling, freestyle skiing and snowboarding on television?

How the Germans ultimately perform will only be seen in February. And it is nothing new that surprises can happen at major events. So it remains to be seen.

However, it has become increasingly clear in recent years that sport is not always just about sport. US top athlete and alpine skiing star Lindsey Vonn recently called the Olympic Games a non-political event. But what about the Munich Games of 1972, Sochi 2014, the football World Cup and Rio 2016, or the football World Cup 2022 in Qatar? The list keeps growing. Pyeongchang is also one of the heavily debated cases.

In early December 2017, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided in a compromise with Russia that Russia would be excluded from the Games; the first time a complete nation has been excluded. The reason for this is systematic, state-sponsored doping. Individual clean athletes are allowed to participate in the Games under the Olympic flag. From the Russian perspective, this is a challenge. It seems as though politics against Russia is being conducted under the guise of doping control. Similar opinions already existed in Rio 2016 when Russian athletes were excluded.

But it does not stop with the doping scandal surrounding Russia. No, the host country itself is viewed critically. This is mainly due to the neighbour North Korea. After the power games between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump over recent months, the situation was tense and not everyone wanted to travel to South Korea. This also applied to Felix Neureuther, who had previously announced that it was certainly an option not to travel to the Games, as safety is the priority. His injury takes this decision away from him.

Pyeongchang is also unpopular with spectators. Fewer than ten per cent of tickets have been sold so far, just under a month before the start of the Games. Annecy or Munich, the two final contenders for the host city of the Games, might have been safer in terms of their neighbouring countries. The situation is currently considered safe, but let us hope that this does not change by February.

It is also significant that some North Korean athletes have qualified for the Games and will travel to their rival neighbouring country. In 2014, the Crimea crisis was the basis for discussions and competition that went beyond the sporting. At the 2016 Games in Rio, an Egyptian judoka refused to shake hands with his Israeli opponent; the outraged outcry was not as loud as it could have been. People have already become accustomed to such things happening. In 2018, it is athletes from North and South Korea who have similar differences to overcome. It is not the first time and it will most likely not be the last time that athletes from rival countries meet in competition. The question, however, is whether one can expect them to take a stand on the political differences of their countries? Is that their task?

Today's conditions make it difficult to concentrate purely on sport. Politics will always play a role, whether one likes it or not. But even if it is not easy, perhaps it would be good to view the Olympic Games precisely for this reason not as a political but as a sporting event. Of course, one can and must not completely ignore politics. But athletes should not be perceived as figures in the political circus, but should receive recognition for their sporting achievements.

Rebecca Bück