UK Condemn Argentine Olympics Advertisement
If you live in Britain the Olympics are unavoidable. They are brought up at any given opportunity. Names like Usain Bolt are used to advertise everything from credit cards to broadband providers. Politicians from the incumbent parties are under directives to awkwardly shoehorn a mention into every public address they take part in.
And that’s the Olympics: they are political.
From building money guzzling arenas to securing the bid in the first place there has been a perilous political battle. People have shown disgust as underground train drivers have been offered bonuses to work during the games. Organizers have been harangued over the cost of the opening ceremony. People are excited, unquestionably, but there are also some arguments left to be had.
Of course, then real politics came into view. See, whilst everything is rosy and fit to burst with anticipation here in the UK on the other side of the Atlantic there are some who are not Britain’s biggest fans.
Argentina and Britain have rekindled an old fire. In 1982 we had the Falklands War. The tiny Islands, known to the Argentines as the Malvinas Isles, was fought over by Britain and Argentina, with Britain eventually winning the rights to maintain the islands.
There have been no skirmishes, but a war of words has flared up again.
How does this tie in with the Olympics? It becomes relevant when the Argentine government allow this pre-Olympic motivational advertisement to be aired.
The athlete in question, Fernando Zylberberg, is a former field hockey captain. He is shown here running around the Falkland Islands, past famous landmarks. He is even seen jogging up the steps of a War memorial. He fades out to the tag line: “To compete on English soil, we are training on Argentine soil”.
Certainly inflammatory, this video has caused much consternation in the UK. Argentine president Cristina Kirchner has shown some chutzpah in endorsing this, perhaps, but in the aftermath of the ad airing the player has failed to make the cut for the Olympic squad and Argentina’s Olympic Committee have distanced themselves from it. Their spokesman stated that “Using the Olympic Games to make political gestures of any kind is not acceptable”.
The British government have called this a “sad stunt” while the Argentine government claim they will not have the ad pulled.
Politics and sport, eh? They make terrible bed fellows.
