In 2014, the popular Russian Black Sea resort city of Sochi will host the Winter Olympics, signifying Russia’s increasingly high international profile. The honor of hosting the Olympics is a challenge and opportunity for the host country, which must be ready for a number of unexpected, if inevitable, domestic and foreign challenges. Criticisms and controversy accompany the run-up to every Olympic Games. China, for example, withstood intense pressure from international nongovernmental organizations before the start of the 2008 Beijing Olympics due to the situation in Tibet. In 2002, a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) suggested that the Winter Games be relocated from Salt Lake City, since the United States was a country at war (with the Taliban in Afghanistan). Earlier, in 1980, U.S. President Jimmy Carter asked the IOC to move the Olympic Games from Moscow after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The 2014 Olympics in Sochi are still five years away, but they have already become one of the most discussed issues on the Russian political agenda. […]
Memo #:
65
Series:
2
PDF:
PDF URL:
http://www.gwu.edu/~ieresgwu/assets/docs/pepm_065.pdf
