Marilia’s Powerlifting Blog

For years there have been cries of dissent among athletes concerning their sports organizations, or Federations. In the name of the “Olympic Spirit”, however, disputes were kept quiet and there was a general agreement as to the need of organizational unity. As the newer, non-Olympic sports became diversified in practice and structure, the fundamentals of sports organization needed to be reviewed.
In the Olympic sports, discontents are still kept at bay, but in the newer ones, the call for unity and even the “Olympic Blackmail” (the argument according to which the sport needs to remain unified in order to get IOC approval) has found decreasing resonance.
A sports organization is a governing body. In principle, a governing body manages the activities of a community. It “governs”: it legislates, it deliberates and it represents. Much as a National Government is the governing body of a National State, the institutional arrangement of social power within society at large, a sports governing body in principle represents (= collects delegated power) athletes.
Representation, however, is far from actually happening. The first observation in this case is that the majority of athletes has no participation in the political life of their federation, has no decision-making power and does not vote. Therefore, athletes do not see federations as representative organizations, but rather bureaucratic nuisances they must handle. 
The second observation is that the “citizenship status” in any sport is at least hard to establish. Whereas anybody knows their national citizenship condition, an athlete does not know exactly what “body-politic” he or she belongs or enters.
Take athletics for example. Defined as a collection of “events” (running, throwing and jumping), it resembles much more an assembly of individual sports than one single “practice”, since athletes usually have a high degree of specialization within it. However, since it is an Olympic sport, one federation congregates all of them. Hypothetically, would throwers feel represented at an institution where 2/3 rds of representatives come from the running and jumping sports? Do marathon runners feel the same about sports as 100m relay athletes?
Who defines who belongs where? Not the athletes, but bureaucrats.
A clash of interests is almost inevitable.
In powerlifting, a non-Olympic sport, there are many federations. Why is it so? A historical approach could conclude that as the sport diversified and developed different relationships with the equipment industry and different techniques, more organizations appeared according to such differences. For example: as the use of bench shirts increased and their technology became more sophisticated, those athletes who decided not to adopt the new equipment went on organizing their own activities within a “raw only” federation.
Another, more structural approach would be that the clash of political interests, unrestrained by Olympic institutional ties, made it possible for leaders – either local, or economic – to create their own federations. Since none of them is actually politically representative, their legitimacy has no sustenance. Anything is possible.
The desperate alternative employed in many cases in sports is appealing not to representative legitimacy, but rather its opposite: a superior authority. The argument goes somewhat according to:

1. Federation “X” has attained, by any combination of factors (size, age, publicity, whatever) IOC recognition;
   
2. Therefore, it has more legitimacy than others;
   
3. Therefore, athletes must respect and come under its power.
   

The “exterior authority” argument, however, is weak to confront the actual infighting and reciprocal attempts at restricting elements of the practice itself, which have a stronger appeal to athletes. Lifters who do not enjoy the use of support equipment will not accept the leadership of equipment lifting representatives. If the organization does not accommodate their interests, they will not recognize it. Lifters who do enjoy the use of equipment, in their turn, will not accept equipment restriction. Rules introduced to restrict elements developed by certain “schools” will contribute to draw lifters away and into federations that accommodate their innovations – or even may contribute to the emergence of new federations.
With no foundation in representation, legitimacy is frail and the sport scenario becomes increasingly closer to a consumer market than to community political organization. Instead of “citizens” in different “sport nations”, athletes are turned into “consumers” of different brands of “entertainment”. Federation “X” offers rules “a”, “b” and “c” and nice big trophies, whereas federation “y” restricts elements “m”, “n” and “p”. Athletes who feel harmed by a certain rule or by the presence of athletes using certain devices will “buy” a different organizational “merchandise”.
In a global economy where this seems to be a widespread trend in so many cultural areas, the question of whether this is good or bad is becoming less and less relevant.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 8th, 2007 at 6:46 am and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.