Fake Olympic Games

14 Aug 2008 10:15 by Mark

There has been much talk about the fakery in use at this year's Olympic Games in Beijing; the Milli Vanilli experience of the little girl miming the song and the fireworks that were a little too perfect for everyone's tastes. Naturally, people are upset as one of the cornerstones of the modern olympics, as set down in the Olympic rulebook in 1900, is the principle that "no host country may employ such technique or technology during the opening ceremony so as to produce a spectacle that is anything other than 100% wholesome and honest and free of trickery."

Oh no, wait a minute, that's not there at all and people are being painted as being driven into a frenzied outrage by the manipulative press.

In fact, far from the use of underhanded skullduggery for entertainment purposes being a thoroughly despicable and new idea invented by the Chinese, the necessity to occasionally alter activities during the games has occurred at nearly every recorded Olympics.


In 1936 rabid sports fan Adolf Hitler wanted nothing more than to watch some of the world's finest athletes compete in the company of some of Germany's most attractive booth babes. His advisors thought differently and photos that were released to the global press were first doctored using crude image fakery techniques to better present a strong German image.


The largely forgotten 1964 Tokyo Olympics is largely forgotten largely due to Japanese photographic experts who crudely removed any imagery of Godzilla from the official records of the games in order to not put off potential investors in the upcoming consumer electronics industry.


The Mexico games of 1968 are forever tarred with the image of American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos delivering a "black power" salute but the truth is that neither competitor was politcally motivated and that both were the victims of Mexican jealousy that their northern neighbour's winning athletes were given free balloons, scarves, hats, and cigarettes while their own went without. Editing in the dark room helped tarnish the American reputation abroad.