Gwynne Dyer: The Olympic Games as a Three-Layer Cake

After recalling a bizarre incident in Olympic lore which gives the article its title, Gwynne Dyer, in Underpants on Fire, paints his own picture of the modern Olympic games as a “bizarre three-layer cake” –

THE THREE-LAYER OLYMPIC CAKE

TOP LAYER:  A sickly-sweet pantomime of international love and brotherhood          

MIDDLE LAYER:  An orgy of nationalist self-congratulation

BOTTOM LAYER:  An international athletics competition

Dyer reports that the Olympic torch ritual was originally invented by the Nazis as part of its public relations program for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin –

There had never been a torch connected with the original Olympic games in ancient Greece, and the revived Games got along without an international relay race just fine [until] the Berlin Olympics of 1936 — but if there was one thing the Nazis did well, it was propaganda.

Now it looks like people around the world are using the Olympic torch to send their own message.  Dyer summarizes what the peoples of many nations are saying in their protests as the torch marches on –

It isn’t “anti-Chinese,” just pro-Tibetan, but there will be much anger and many hurt feelings by the time this is done.

The top layer of the cake is not looking so pretty this year. 

One has to wonder if there is any real significance to the torch relay ritual other than the unique meaning it is given each time it is run.  

Although some may argue against “politicizing” the Olympic torch, the only other option is to mindlessly go through what Dyer has labeled “a sickly-sweet pantomime.” Only people can give the Olympic torch whatever meaning it will convey, and they are certainly doing so this year.