Rio 2016: Is it too late for a tainted Olympic Games to bounce back?

Brazilians cannot help but notice they are not hosting a festive and friendly event, but a hostile and frankly unpleasant one

Swimming hero Michael Phelps takes to the pool on Monday (Getty)

The world is not naturally governed by an Olympian spirit. Contrary to what you might currently be seeing on your television screens, Amazonian jaguars do not spend their weekends racing one another across the jungle floor. Howler monkeys are not preternaturally disposed to impromptu volleyball contests with a nearby coconut (not least as there are no coconuts nearby). The black caiman tends to lurk unseen on the riverbed and attack its prey by stealth from below. A fully synchronised triple somersault from the treetops would surely give its game away.

Fair play is very much a human invention. Justice might feel like it answers a natural instinct, but it is not upheld by nature. And when those who answer a noble calling to uphold it fail in their duties, what follows is what we now see in the stands, on the podiums and in the press conferences of Rio: mob rule.

Large swathes of the Brazilian population are already angry about the cost of the Games. So much so that on Tuesday afternoon a Brazilian judge sought to overturn an otherwise sacred International Olympic Committee rule and allow peaceful protest inside Olympic venues. The IOC has long demanded host cities enshrine in their own law that political protest is banned. Heaven forfend, the ire should turn on them. The only flags allowed are “for the purposes of the festive and friendly event”.

Trouble is, with Brazilian taxpayer’s money now all spent, they cannot help but notice they are not hosting a festive and friendly event, but a tainted, hostile and frankly unpleasant one.

While the once banned Chinese swimmer Sun Yang collected his gold medal for the 200m freestyle, his French compatriot Camille Lacourt was telling a poolside radio station interview that “Sun Yang p***es purple”.

The Australian Mack Horton beat Sun Yang into second place in the 400m freestyle, and immediately afterwards called him a drugs cheat. The Chinese Olympic Association have demanded an apology. Australia refuses to issue one. Horton and Lacourt’s various social media accounts are now under attack from Sun’s Chinese fans, who are straying into racist territory.

The people of Rio and the athletes of Rio 2016 have been fatally let down. They have been left to self-police their own games, with all the consequences that entails. The genie is out of the bottle

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American Lilly King refused to acknowledge the existence of Yulia Efimova, the twice-banned Russian who won silver, which is arguably more courteous than the crowd’s treatment of her, who have loudly booed all week at any mention of her name. King had made her views plain. That if someone has been banned not once but twice, they shouldn’t be competing. It was pointed out to her that her own teammate, track and field sprinter Justin Gatlin, has also been banned twice. “Do I think people who have been caught for doping offenses should be on the team?,” she said. “No. They shouldn’t.”

Michael Phelps has come to her defence. “It's kind of sad that today in sports in general, not just in swimming, there are people who are testing positive and are allowed back in the sport, and multiple times,” he said. “I think it just breaks what sport is meant to be and that pisses me off.” Perhaps so. But it doesn’t appear to have pissed him off enough to not pose for social media selfies walking around the village with Gatlin himself.

The athletes are not to be blamed for their inconsistencies. And certainly not the crowds for voicing their rage. They deserve a better spectacle.

The IOC’s chief spokesperson, Mark Adams, said his organisation “supports freedom of speech” – albeit not as far as politics is concerned. “But it’s also about respecting your rivals,” he said. “There is a line somewhere between people should be free to speak and have respect for others.”

A noble sentiment, but it’s too late. The people of Rio and the athletes of Rio 2016 have been fatally let down. They have been left to self-police their own games, with all the consequences that entails. The genie is out of the bottle.

In recent years, the Olympic movement has become heavily involved in writing its own history. Its official channels like to commemorate great moments in Olympic history. Among them have been the notorious Black Power salute in Mexico 1968, even though its official statement at the time was that it was “a deliberate and violent breach of the fundamental principles of the Olympic spirit.“

Last week, the movement itself publicised the 24-year anniversary of Derek Redmond’s dad carrying his son around the track with a torn hamstring. On the day, its role is clear from the video, as Jim Redmond waves away the Olympic blazerati who are seeking to remove him from the track. They did the same to Mo Farah’s wife.

If the now irredeemably tainted games of Rio are to be remembered for anything great at all, its athletes should do what Olympic greatness is often about. Ignore the blazers. Take a stand. No one else is going to do it for you. That much is abundantly clear.

The state of nature has returned. For anything like justice to return in the short week and a half ahead, things may have to turn yet more nasty and brutish.