Politics in Sports

Sports and politics shouldn’t be mentioned in the same sentence but ironically they come together all too frequently. Whether your sport is bodybuilding, figure, bikini, physique, strongman, powerlifting or a multitude of others it when everything is said and done does the best athlete win? We compete to challenge ourselves and test our abilities against others in the same field, but if politics determine the outcome of the events then what pushes us to continue?

Does favoritism or popularity determine how you’re judged? Even in a sport like Strongman or Powerlifting where it seems that the strongest will prevail it’s not always the reality. For example, say you’re competing in a Bench Press competition. You have to listen for the judges to call “press, and rack” otherwise your lift won’t be counted. When you lower the weight to your chest it needs to touch. The judge will make you hold it at the bottom until they instruct you to press. However, judges can make you hold it for a split second to 3-6 seconds so they hold a lot of power in the lifters performance. The longer you hold a lift on the bottom the more energy you waste.

Consider the sport of strongman, this sport is generally dominated by tall, massive men, but there are many top athletes that barely scrape the 6’ tall demographic. If you watched World’s Strongest Man last year you would see the smallest athlete in the top 10 lead the way through 5 events to get beaten in the final event because it happened to favor a taller athlete. In one of the qualifying events they had a Viking press set up where for the taller athletes they raised the pressing platform to make it easier for the taller man. Do you think that is fair? They don’t lower the heights for the shorter men that compete. So does the strongest win, or is all about TV ratings?

Women’s figure and bikini are incredibly competitive, and for the most part you know the top 5 or 6 places after pre-judging. Sometimes some of the best figures get passed up because of popularity. You see it all too often that the judges call out the competitors they “believe” are the best but I’m sure you can make an argument for at least a few others in the group that never got a real look because they were unknown or less popular.

As an athlete, I have been on the negative end of things when it comes to the true outcomes of events. I’ve won 4 out of 5 events and placed 5^th overall in a group of 12. I’ve had the last event changed to favor a taller home town athlete to give them an advantage over me in the end. Politics and popularity are involved in nearly every sport, and it’s a true shame. What keeps me going is the athletes and the competition from within. Sometimes it’s fair, and sometimes it’s not but the challenge still remains, and competing against your friends and rivals is always an amazing feeling.