Skewed in favour of rich nations, illogical rules, too many sports: Do the Olympics need a rethink?

Yet another Olympics has ended and the torch has literally been passed to Los Angeles for the 2028 Games. As we savour the many moments of sporting excellence over the past fortnight, we also need to admit that there are serious problems with the Olympics. Much can be said about the administration of the Olympics and sports in general. Here, I am concerned with the Games itself, which have inherent inequalities, showcase sports that are barely popular and plagued with strange rules. In fact, some that do not even qualify as sport.

That the modern Olympics has always been heavily loaded in favour of wealthy countries is no secret. There is enough evidence to suggest that richer countries, with high human development indicators, win more medals. Indeed, the top 10 nations in the medal tally for the 2024 Olympics are the United States at first position followed by China, Japan, Australia and the host nation France.

In fact, China is an outlier since, despite its high gross domestic product, its per capita income and human development index rank is much lower than the others in the top 10. But China has overcome these disadvantages by a policy of medal harvesting that goes back over two decades. There are exceptions like Kenya or Iran that are poorer nations but ranked 17 and 21 in the 2024 medal tally. However, these countries have an established tradition in disciplines like long-distance running and wrestling that have helped them surmount low income and human development levels.

Besides the income gap, which has a discernible impact on medal winning capabilities, the nature of the sports included in the Olympics also contribute to the inequality. Take, for example, the equestrian event which has six gold medals on offer. Leaving aside the question of animal cruelty, how many countries can afford to invest money to acquire and train horses and then transport them to the Olympics venue? Predictably, Germany and Great Britain won the equestrian gold medals in the 2024 Olympics and the rest of the medals were won by high-income countries like France, Australia, Denmark, Switzerland, the US, Netherlands and Japan.

The situation is the same for another high-cost discipline, canoe sprint, where the nine gold medals on offer were won by New Zealand, Germany, China, Czech Republic and Canada. The list of such sports could go on.

In fact, the story is much the same for more popular disciplines like swimming, which has an astonishing 35 gold medals at stake and aquatics in general where swimming pools and other facilities are expensive. Again, the swimming gold medals in 2024 were all won by high-income countries with the only exception being South Africa which won one gold.

The rules of the different sports are also far too difficult to understand for the lay sports fan. Here I am not referring to wrestler Vinesh Phogat whose disqualification, though extremely unfortunate, could still be justified under the existing rules. It’s another matter that the organisers themselves do not seem to fully comprehend the rules or their sanctity given the long time they have taken to decide Phogat’s appeal. Without going into the technical aspects of sports like gymnastics or diving, which are beyond most people, consider the wrestling bout involving Indian wrestler Reetika Hooda.

She lost to her Kyrgyz opponent despite being tied 1-1 with both the wrestlers gaining a point each from the so-called “passivity” rule. The Kyrgyz won because of the illogical rule that if two wrestlers end with the same score, the one who scores the last point is declared winner.

It’s not just rules that are illogical but the formats for various sports are also inconsistent. For instance, it is possible to win a medal in boxing after winning just two bouts since there is no bronze medal match and both losing semifinalists are awarded medals. However the rules are different in wrestling where there is a bronze medal bout.

What is more galling is that in sports like badminton a player could potentially play three group matches, two knockout games and then miss a medal if he or she loses in the semi-finals. On top of that, badminton, unlike table tennis, does not have a team competition. At the same time there are “repechage” – a term you possibly only encounter during the Olympics and loosely translates into “second chance” – rounds in wrestling, judo, cycling, rowing and, most recently, in some track and field events but not in other sports.

Finally, the Olympics is an event with too many sports on offer. The modern Olympics began with nine sports, which has currently ballooned to 32 sports and 48 disciplines, with some having too many sub-categories. Some so-called sports like breaking or breakdancing, which is an artistic form, should not find a place in a sporting competition like the Olympics.

There are also inconsistencies in what sports are included and what is not. If 3x3 basketball is an Olympic sport, why isn’t five-a-side football or futsal included? While cricket will return and squash will make a debut in the 2028 Los Angeles Games, serious reservations can be raised about flag football, a variation of American football, and lacrosse being included.

The Olympics is a bloated competition that has too many events, some of which are hardly watched, some that perpetuate the inequality among competing nations and some that should not be there at all. There are lessons here too for countries like India that for various reasons crave a better performance in the Olympics.

Without resorting to authoritarian policies, pushing up the country’s income levels, improving human development and providing greater and equal access to sports for children is perhaps the only path to sporting success. There is also a need to forsake the idea of the Olympics as the holy grail.

The writer is with the National University of Singapore. He is the author of Nation at Play: A History of Sport in India.