I. Before reading the articles, students sit in small groups. The groups discuss the points below and record their views. 
 
1. What are the main principles of Olympic sports competitions?
2. How closely do Olympic sports competitions follow these principles?
3. How do Olympic sports events unite or divide individuals, peoples and countries?  Give examples that you can think of to support your views.
 
II. Each group gets ONE of the articles below to read.
 
III. Then the groups  review the above questions and add new information to their answers.
 
IV. JIGSAW ACTIVITY: Make new groups. Put at least one student from each of the previous groups in these "jigsaw" groups.  Everyone tells about the article they have read.  The "jigsaw" groups review the questions above and add new information.
 
V. Follow up activity.  Write a dialogue about one of the following:
•      Avery Bundage and Jewish athletes from the USA --early in 1936 (before the games)  discuss boycotting the games.
• Dave Cobb, executive vice-president and deputy chief executive with Vancouver's 2010 Olympic Winter Games organizing committee (VANOC) and one of the 60 fulltime employees of the City of Vancouver whose job has been cut to help the city balance it's budget in 2009, discuss whether the Olympics could be hosted and run with no public money from the cities of the Greater Vancouver Region, the province of BC, or the federal government of Canada.
• General Walter J. Natynczyk, Chief of the Defence Staff of the Canadian Forces and Afghan survivor of bombing in her home village, discussing an "Olympic truce".
• Vancouver police chief and a resident of the downtown Eastside discussing safety and security leading up to and during the Olympic games.
• The mayor of Vancouver and Arthur Manuel discuss whether the Olympic games will benefit Indigenous people's. 
 
Introduction to the Articles
 
The thought behind the Modern Olympic Games, as conceived by Baron de Coubertin, was that they should be held in a "pristine atmosphere, untouched and untroubled by politics, anti-Semitism, racism, fascism ill-will to others, no discrimination of any kind, no rivalries, and where all sportsmen are equal." (Adapted from the Olympic Charter). It sounds wonderful, doesn't it? That was almost true of the 1st Modern Olympic Games in 1896, but even the Baron contradicted himself by forbidding women to participate in those Games! This quote has remained a myth, flaunted by sportsmen, Olympic committees and countries alike at every opportunity. For something so noble as the Olympic Games it is sad to realize that the opposite is true.
 
Articles:
Anti-Semitism and the 1936 Berlin Olympics
 
Vancouver's Olympic Finances Melt Down 
 
Olympic Truce Tradition Hard for Canada to Swallow
 
Downtown Eastside Residents Protest Police 'Street Sweeps'

 
First Nations Activists Threaten Picture
 
 
Anti-Semitism and the 1936 Olympics
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Pantheon/8127/olyhtml/jigsaw.html
 
The most blatant hypocrisy of the Olympic Charter took place at the 1936 Berlin Games in Germany. The Games had been awarded to Berlin before Hitler came to power in 1933. Hitler and the German Nazi party began a reign of terror, ending freedom of speech and assembly. They also organized persecution of Jews and certain other people who they called "undesirables." In 1935 the Nazis proclaimed the racial and citizen-ship law legalizing anti-Semitism. The German people did nothing to oppose the law! Jews were forced to wear the infamous yellow arm bands and yellow Star of David on their clothing. Among many other things, they were banned from sports clubs. Jewish shops were off limits to the so-called superior Aryan race. Jewish businesses were plundered and their owners beaten, sometimes to death, as were many other Jews living in Germany. A reign of terror existed long before the Olympic Games.
 
   Meanwhile, the German government took control of the games-contrary to the Olympic Charter-to prove to the world that the German Aryan athletes were a superior to the rest of the world's athletes. They barred Jews from taking part in the Games, saying they were far to inferior a race to have any sportsmen of German caliber. However, pressure was so great that Hitler temporarily suspended the more obvious anti-Semitic activities. Sports leaders from around the world used this temporary suspension as an excuse to ignore the German government's anti-Semitic practices to justify participation in the games.
 
   And what was the rest of the world doing about it when the fate of the hapless Jews in Germany became known? Well, millions of Americans wanted to boycott the Berlin Games because of Germany's rabid anti-Semitic policies. Canada, France and Great Britain also agreed to the boycott. But the International Olympic Committee, living in their ivory tower, in hypocrisy of their charter, said that the anti-German movement was because of Jewish and communist agitation!
 
   Avery Brundage, at the time, president of U.S. Olympic Committee warned the Jews to "keep your hands off American sport!!" He added "No nation since ancient Greece has displayed a more truly national public interest in the Olympic spirit than you find in Germany. We can learn much from Germany!" So eventually these countries sent teams to the Games. Privately Brundage, an anti-Semite and a racist himself did not care what was happening to the German Jews as long as he could send a team to the Games. We will hear more about him later. During the Games Hitler was busy building the concentration camps where 6 million Jews were to perish. Had international pressure succeeded and the Games took place elsewhere, then maybe, just maybe, the 6 million would have survived. 
 
 
 
Vancouver's Olympic finances melt down, Games budget falls apart
Brian Hutchinson, National Post 
Published: Friday, July 17, 2009
 
VANCOUVER -- Dave Cobb has his Games face on. Screwed on tight. Executive vice-president and deputy chief executive with Vancouver's 2010 Olympic Winter Games organizing committee (VANOC), he's the main numbers man, responsible for delivering six months from now a break-even mega-party.
Can he manage? His expression doesn't change.
 
Yes, he says, he can.
 
We hope. Like it or not, we are all invested parties. Whether by circumstance or choice, taxpayers and private sponsors have bet that an extravagant, international entertainment event will bring significant returns to Vancouver, to British Columbia, to Canadians.
 
Before the world economy soured, the odds at breaking even looked pretty good. Money flowed into VANOC coffers; relatively little was handed out. The committee's budget projections seemed about right. The Games' books could balance.
 
Corporations bought in, in a big way. Leading the pack was Bell Canada, wholly owned by BCE Inc.
 
In late 2004, when times were good, Bell committed a staggering $200-million to the Vancouver's 2010 Games, plus sponsorship rights to Turin in 2006, Beijing in 2008, and London in 2012. The deal included $90-million in cold, hard cash.
 
Bell also teamed with Rogers Communications Inc. to acquire broadcast rights to both the 2010 Winter Games and to the 2012 Summer Games. The consortium paid a record $153-million for these rights.
 
The rest of Bell's commitment was described in terms of services, such as the installation of 285 kilometres of fibre-optic cable between Vancouver and Whistler, B.C., and a new wireless link between the two centres.
VANOC's good fortune continued. In 2005, it secured still more lucrative sponsorship deals: A $110-million pledge from RBC Financial Group, which includes $70-million in cash and the rest in services; $62.5-million from Petro-Canada, including $18-million in cash; $53-million from General Motors of Canada, which includes $14-million in cash; $100-million worth of goods and services from Hudson's Bay Co.; and cash and services worth $68-million from home improvement chain Rona Inc.
 
Then came the global economic meltdown. None of the 2010 ­ sponsors has reneged, not even bankrupt GM. But some of the agreements now look profligate. Some analysts say expected returns to the company - advertising dollars especially - will have to be adjusted downward, perhaps severely.
Even small deals are hard to come by, now.
 
This week, after months of inactivity on the sponsorship front, VANOC announced it had signed up ALDA Pharmaceuticals Corp. The New Westminster, B.C., company will supply the Games with hand sanitizer and disinfectant cleaning products.
 
"These are products for the times we are in," offered John Furlong, VANOC's CEO. "Infection control" had to be introduced for the Games to avoid disruption from H1N1 and Norwalk viruses.
 
VANOC is still looking for sponsors and suppliers to round out its roster.
Meanwhile, expenditures are rising. According to ­VANOC officials, some companies have declined to bid for Olympics-related work; this has meant contracts are being awarded without a competitive process, driving up ­VANOC's costs.
 
Mr. Cobb has tweaked his forecasts. His operating budget, now $1.76-billion, is up 7% from 2007, and has increased significantly from the original $1.3-billion six years ago, when Vancouver made its winning Games bid.
 
The $1.76-billion budget doesn't include security costs. Originally estimated at $175-million, the security bill is now expected to top $900-million. About half will be spent on services provided by the RCMP. Taxpayers will pick up the entire security tab.
 
VANOC's budget doesn't include spending on infrastructure projects, such as new highways and transit initiatives, and an $883-million - and drop-dead gorgeous -Vancouver convention centre, built to coincide with the Games and to meet visitor and media requirements.
 
Vancouver ratepayers expect to be saddled with debt associated with an athletes' village downtown; completion of its interminable and allegedly shoddy construction is now a municipal responsibility, thanks to a private financing imbroglio triggered by the economic crisis.
 
Some of these extras - the new transit routes, especially - were needed and would likely have been built regardless of the Games. Vancouver will be better for all of them. No one ever promised they'd come freely, let alone on budget.
 
VANOC, on the other hand, remains zero-deficit committed. Speaking to reporters this week after a scheduled VANOC board meeting, Mr. Cobb did not move from that longstanding pledge. He did not project rock-solid confidence, either.
 
Certain assumptions have been made. Some budget targets seem ill-defined. For example, almost 14% of VANOC's total operating revenue is to come from nebulous "Other" sources.
 
In a terse note to its now-discarded 2007 budget document, VANOC said that "Other" revenue "comes from a variety of sources, some confirmed, and the rest from areas to be further planned and activated over the next three years." Among the "key areas targeted," the note reads, is "Internet revenue." A quaint notion, it now seems.
 
VANOC has still not indicated the source of half its anticipated $237-million "Other" income.
 
Mr. Cobb did acknowledge this week that there are gaps on the revenue side. Unsold international sponsorships account for a $30-million hole in the Games balance sheet.
 
It seems unlikely that these international sponsorships will sell; there's little time left for a new sponsor to get full marketing value for its money.
 
VANOC is struggling to sell a glut of unsold advertising inventory. Specifically, "out of home" billboard spots in communities surrounding metro Vancouver. The shortfall there is $12-million.
 
Premium ticket sales are languishing. Want to purchase a bells and whistles VIP package, starting at $145,000? There are plenty available. VANOC has sold only a third of its original target figure.
 
Mr. Cobb expects that ­VANOC will suck dry another $27-million revenue contingency fun before the Games have ended next February. The money will likely be spent to cover shortfalls in advertising revenue.
 
A $100-million contingency fund for Games venues has already been depleted; there's just $310,000 left in that kitty. Fortunately, construction on the venues is all but finished. But there's barely any margin left for changes or improvements.
 
About the only certainty is that VANOC will not spend less than $1.76-billion.
 
Things could be worse. Vancouver can count itself lucky not to be hosting the 2012 Olympic Summer Games, awarded to London, England. Organizers there think they can get the job done for a bit more than $17-billion.
 
By the numbers
$1.3 Operating budget (2003) in billions.
$1.63 Operating budget (2007) in billions.
$1.76 Operating budget (2009) in billions.
75 Estimated sale of VIP (Vancouver 2010 Club) ticket packages, starting at $145,000 per package.
25 Number of VIP packages purchased.
$175 Estimated security budget (2003) in millions.
$900 Estimated security budget as of February 2009 in millions.
$647.5 Amount to be covered by the federal government in millions.
 
 
 
Olympic truce tradition hard for Canada to swallow
Organizers say they have no intention of asking troops fighting in Afghanistan to lay down arms during the Games
ROD MICKLEBURGH, Globe and Mail, Saturday, Sep. 19, 2009
 
Canada may be in an awkward "do as I say, not as I do" situation next month as it prepares a resolution for the United Nations General Assembly calling on all nations to observe an Olympic truce during the 2010 Winter Games.
Canadian soldiers continue to fight and die in war-torn Afghanistan, and 2010 organizers say they have no intention of asking that their country's own troops lay down their arms for the 17 days of the Olympics.
 
"We will not be entering into that kind of discussion with Canada," VANOC president John Furlong affirmed yesterday.
 
The UN has traditionally passed an Olympic Truce resolution before each Summer and Winter Games since the early 1990s, echoing the practice of the ancient Greeks, who, according to legend, put aside their weapons every four years to compete peacefully at the Olympic Games of yore.
 
The country where the Games will be staged routinely introduces the resolution.
 
"The goal is to have all nations of the world support the truce, which is intended to promote a spirit of peace around the world during the period of the Games," Mr. Furlong said. "The whole idea is to promote peace, not just in the host country, but in other countries."
 
Canada, however, as one of the few host Olympic nations in recent years to be engaged in an actual conflict, is unlikely to observe any sort of ceasefire.
 
The 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City was the last occasion a country held an Olympics while taking part in military hostilities. The United States was then at war, also in Afghanistan, after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. U.S. diplomats watered down their UN Olympic Truce resolution to focus on providing "a safe passage" to the world's athletes, rather than a call for peace.
 
Of course, Olympic controversy over foreign troops in Afghanistan is nothing new. The largest boycott in the history of the Olympics took place in 1980, when dozens of Western nations, including Canada and the United States, withdrew from the Moscow Summer Games to protest against the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan.
 
Now, it's the West's turn to fight in the impoverished Asian country, but this time, no one is boycotting anything.
 
Asked whether Canada would take any initiative to ease hostilities there during the Olympics, Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Alain Cacchione steered carefully away from the question.
 
"What I can tell you at this point in time is that, as host of the upcoming Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, Canada is pleased to bring forward the draft resolution entitled 'Building a peaceful and better world through sport and the Olympic ideal,' " Mr. Cacchione responded in an e-mail.
He said the resolution would "promote the ideals of peace, understanding and fair play within the positive atmosphere of sport."
 
The concept of a modern-day Olympic Truce was launched by the International Olympic Committee in 1992. Despite some early successes (a temporary ceasefire in the bloody civil war in Sudan, and an arrangement to deliver humanitarian aid to the hard-hit population of strife-ridden Bosnia), the IOC now plays down expectations of meaningful peace gestures while the Games go on. Advocates stress instead the symbolic value of the truce.
"The world is a complex place," Mr. Furlong acknowledged. "But by bringing the world's attention to the truce, the whole idea is to promote the spirit of peace at home, and just try to get the world to focus on the value of this, at a time when it's needed.
 
"We've always believed, and people in sport believe, that when you're playing, you are not fighting."
 
Late yesterday, VANOC officials released examples of recent truce initiatives by previous Olympic Organizing Committees. For the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, for instance, a partnership with Unicef was struck to help vaccinate children in countries ravaged by conflict during the truce period, while organizers of the Athens Summer Olympics in 2004 added peace to the message of its torch relay.
 
Canada is due to introduce its Olympic Truce resolution at the UN General Assembly on Oct. 20. The wording of the motion is still being worked on. Those involved include representatives of Foreign Affairs, VANOC, the IOC and the International Paralympic Committee.
 
 
Downtown Eastside residents protest police 'street sweeps'

CBC News, Sunday, March 15, 2009
 
Residents of Vancouver's poverty-stricken Downtown Eastside protested Sunday against what they see as a pre-Olympic police strategy to drive them off the streets through petty ticketing and random identification checks.
About 100 people showed up outside a police station on Main Street — formerly the department's headquarters — in the heart of the gritty neighbourhood.
 
Pelted by wet snow flurries, speakers angrily rejected the police business plan that calls for more tickets to be issued for bylaw infractions such as jaywalking and street vending — laws they say aren't enforced in Vancouver's nicer neighbourhoods.
 
Clyde Wright of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users said members "have been ticketed for offences such as stepping off the curb unsafely, riding a bicycle on the sidewalk, having no helmet, having no bell on their bike."
The police plan calls for more summons to be issued to enforce the fines, which Wright said are a hardship on residents living on social assistance.
"This is targeted harassment of poor people," he told the rally.
Protesters set up a sidewalk sale hoping to attract police attention, but officers stayed clear, instead blocking the street to traffic as the rally spilled off the sidewalk.
 
 
 
First nations activists threaten picture
By Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun 
April 8, 2009
 
Canada's aboriginal people want visitors to the 2010 Winter Olympics to see who they really are. But even among themselves, there are two very different versions of what that is.
 
The Vancouver Organizing Committee and the governments prefer that they see the positive side. Because of that, they've nurtured the participation of the Squamish, Musqueam, Lil'Wat and Tsleil-Waututh.
 
The Games will take place on their ancestral lands and, in Olympic-speak, they're the Four Host First Nations.
 
Their people will participate in the torch relay, which will run through each of their lands.  They will be at the airport for the official welcome for national teams, Olympic family members and VIPs.  They'll be at medal ceremonies, the official opening and closing ceremonies and, most likely, welcoming and performing at corporate events as well.
 
But there's another side that few -- including the Four Host First Nations -- want visitors to even glimpse. It's the one that is driving militant warrior societies and first nations activists' threats to disrupt the Games through all kinds of civil disobedience, including possibly blocking the Sea to Sky Highway. Their complaints are both familiar and, often, justifiable.
 
Activist Arthur Manuel from the Central Interior argues that Canada continues to systematically deny basic human rights to aboriginal people. He rightly points out that many subsist in Third World-type communities without proper housing or potable water. Their life expectancy, educational achievement and general health are far below the Canadian average. They are disproportionately represented in both foster care and in prisons.
Manuel also notes that Canada was one of only four countries that refused in 2007 to sign the United Nations' declaration on aboriginal rights. He and others argue that the Olympics will take place on disputed lands where treaties have never been settled. And they contend that the security measures demanded by the International Olympic Committee stifle protest and are anti-democratic because they limit Canada's constitutionally guaranteed rights to freedom of expression, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.
Far from benefiting first nations people, the anti-Games activists argue, the close to $7 billion of public money going into the Games has been siphoned away from needed housing projects, detox and rehabilitation centres.
 
And while the 2010 Olympics may be the greenest ever, they noted that tens of thousands of trees have been cut at Cypress Mountain, in the Callahan Valley and along the Sea to Sky Highway, mountains have been blasted and precious habitat destroyed. Concrete used in venue construction meant tonnes of gravel was mined from the Fraser Valley and destroyed salmon spawning grounds.
 
Already they have participated in blockades aimed at stopping highway construction in West Vancouver. The Native Warriors Society claimed credit for stealing an Olympic flag from City Hall in 2007. And, in 2008, they blocked a rail line and briefly held up the CP Rail-Vanoc Spirit Train. They've printed up resistance pamphlets and have plastered "No Olympics on Stolen Native Land" stickers all over Vancouver and Whistler.
 
They dismiss the Four Host First Nations as sellouts.
 
At a recent news conference, anti-Olympics activist Dustin Johnson -- a Tsimshan -- called them "a small group of corporate elite capitalists." He said what they are doing is "corrupt, illegal treason."
 
The aboriginal activists are a key part of the Olympic resistance coalition, which includes some of the anti-globalization activists who were on the front lines, pepper-sprayed and jailed in 2005 during Vancouver's APEC summit.
 
Their threats to block roads and disrupt the Olympics are being taken seriously by the RCMP as it plots its $900-million security plan.
Tewanee Joseph, chief executive of the Four Host First Nations Society, and Phil Fontaine, grand chief of Assembly of First Nations, also take them seriously and even agree with many of the things they are protesting against.
 
"The issues they have aren't with the Games," says Joseph. "It's poverty and other social issues like housing. Maybe it's naive of me, but I think if we all work together we should be able to solve those problems."
Both men have also urged the activists to respect the choice made by the Four Host First Nations to gain some economic benefits from the Olympics and use them as an opportunity to showcase their cultures.