https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1289805-olympics-2012-10-biggest-controversies-from-
summer-games
https://abcnews.go.com/Sports/story?id=99664&page=1
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/sydney-olympics-from-frogs-halting-construction-
to-stadium-built-on-sand-sydney-was-not-immune-to-olympic-host-controversy/news-
story/742bd413747d35567001d7ce5004dad4
Performing Culture: Olympic Opening Ceremonies
In the 2000 Summer Olympics held in Sydney, Australia, there was some controversy
over a few athletes being stripped of their medals after being tested positive for the use of
prohibited substances. Marion Jones, who was an American track star, was found using steroids
to enhance her athleticism. This resulted in her five medals being stripped and the IOC action
decided to officially disqualify her from the next Olympic games, the 2004 Summer Olympics
Romanian gymnast, Andreea Raducan has also been tested positive for pseudoephedrine, this
was prescribed to help her get rid of fever she had before the games, however, this ended up
disqualifying her because it was considered a prohibited substance. Other issues during the 2000
Summer Olympics held in Sydney, Australia were that during the Women's artistic gymnastics
events, Allana Slater helped to point out that the vaults were set too low. After officials measured
the height to confirm or deny this issue, they had realized that the vault was 5 cm lower than
standard. This resulted in gymnasts making errors and even the British gymnast Annika Reeder
falling and becoming injured. Lastly, there was an issue with Dong Fangxiao lying about her age
to be qualified to compete. This Chinese gymnast was two years shy of the 16-year-old age
requirement, making her disqualified.
For the drug-related issues, I believe this could be solved by assessing drug use before the
games. Require these athletes to come in earlier than they typically do and perform a drug test. If
there is anything questionable, then the athlete is not able to partake in the games. This way,
there will be no question of if someone is under the influence. For the other two issues that had
happened in the 2000 Summer Olympics held in Sydney, Australia, I believe most of it was from
laziness. No one had double-checked the age of the Chinese gymnast, Dong Fangxiao, which
should have been something that you verify before she would even be able to perform. Also, they
did a poor job setting up for the Women's artistic gymnastics events, this resulted in the vault
being 5 cm lower than standard. This minor overlook caused multiple mess-ups for athletes and
even injury. I believe by holding the athletes more accountable, double-checking records, and not
allowing small details to be overlooked would have prevented these issues.
In the 2012 Summer Olympics held in London, England, it seemed human errors and
insensitivity was the main issues that stuck controversy. The big one that most people remember
is the North Korean women's football team. The North Korean team was represented on the
screen by the South Korean flag by mistake. Due to this, the North Korean team decided not to
play and ended up causing an hour delay to their start time against Columbia. There were also
issues with insensitive and racial slurs being shared on social media by Paraskevi Papachristou
and Michel Morganella. Both