2024 Paris Olympics Highlights and Lowlights: From Hijab Bans to Social Cleansing to Boxing Gold

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris held its closing ceremony Sunday with actor Tom Cruise jumping from the stadium roof and passing the baton to Los Angeles, which will host the next games in 2028. The mayor of Los Angeles was there, Karen Bass, and she promised to try to make L.A. car-free for those Olympics.

At the first-ever Olympic breakdancing competition of the games, a member of the Olympic Refugee Team from Afghanistan known as “b-girl Talash” was disqualified when she wore a cape that said “Free Afghan Women.” The International Olympic Committee also allowed France to ban hijab-wearing Olympians from France, in what critics called a “shameful moment.” But the games ended with the Dutch runner Sifan Hassan becoming a record-breaking Olympic marathon gold medalist and wearing a hijab during the ceremony when she accepted her medal.

Meanwhile, the Algerian boxer Imane Khelif won the Olympic gold medal Friday in a major victory for the athlete, who competed while facing a torrent of abuse, fed in part by harassment from high-profile transphobic observers, including Donald Trump and author J.K. Rowling, who falsely claimed Khelif was a trans athlete and should be banned from competing. Khelif has since filed a legal complaint in France against online harassment. Her attorney posted on Instagram Friday, quote, “Imane Khelif has decided to lead a new fight: that of justice, dignity and honor,” unquote.

Also at the games, American sprinter Noah Lyles won gold for 100-meter dash, later had to leave the games after he collapsed and had to be rolled away from the track when he finished third, won bronze, in the 200-meter dash, and it was revealed he had tested positive for COVID. Many of the athletes came down with COVID there.

All of this comes as French authorities face protest for systematically displacing unhoused people in Paris. Later this month, the Paralympics start on August 28th.

For more, we’re joined by three guests.

In Paris, we’re joined by Fadi Deeb, representing Palestine as a shot putter in the 2024 Paris Olympics, the only member of the Palestinian Olympic delegation from Gaza, the only Paralympian athlete from Palestine to compete in the 2024 Summer Games. He has been disabled since he was shot by an Israeli soldier in Gaza City in 2001.

Just back from Paris is Dave Zirin, who’s covered the Olympics as sports editor for The Nation magazine and host of the Edge of Sports podcast.

Also with us, Shireen Ahmed, senior contributor to CBC Sports and instructor of sports journalism and media at Toronto Metropolitan University. Her most recent article is headlined “Afghan athlete’s DQ shows IOC’s support of women is not unconditional.”

We welcome you all to Democracy Now! Dave, you’re just back from Paris. Can you talk about the highlights and lowlights of these Olympics?

DAVE ZIRIN: Well, Amy, it’s great to be here. It’s an honor to be on with Fadi, who I got to meet in Paris. And, of course, it’s terrific to be on with my dear friend Shireen.

First of all, I got to start with the lowlights. I heard a reporter in Paris say, “Why aren’t there any stories away from the Olympics? Why aren’t there any stories in Paris?” And that really got me upset, because there are 12,500 stories in Paris, if people just wanted to investigate them. Twelve thousand five hundred is the number of migrants and the number of unhoused people who were unceremoniously loaded on buses and driven outside the city and dropped off in shelters or just dropped off, period. And one of the things I heard when I was there is they have prioritized women and children for these “trips” outside the city. And, of course, I put “trips” in ironic quotes. And because they prioritize women and children, they also broke up families in Paris, for the purposes of making the city, as they say, you know, acceptable and clean for the games, for a foreign audience of wealthy tourists. So, that part of it was extremely distressing.

If you want to talk about a positive, I think there’s a warning sign for Los Angeles in the 2028 Olympics, because the positive part of Paris is that it’s a highly centralized city with a first-class European public transportation system. Fast-forward to Los Angeles in 2028, where it looks like the Metro system is not even going to be built, and also, as we know, in Los Angeles there’s a serious unhoused problem. We’ve seen the governor, Gavin Newsom, personally put a hand in displacing unhoused people. We have to start organizing now to make sure that the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles are not a carnival of injustice.

AMY GOODMAN: And let’s talk about some of the athletes and the stories around them. Let me bring into this conversation Shireen Ahmed. You know, as we watched the closing ceremony, tens of thousands of people crowded into the stadium, Shireen. The Netherlands’ Sifan Hassan had her record-breaking moment where she was holding the gold. She was honored for the marathon. The women’s marathon was the last marathon and the last sport before the ending of the Olympics. And Sifan Hassan stood there, podium gold, in her hijab. Talk about why this was so significant in this final moment.

SHIREEN AHMED: Amy, the irony and sort of the bittersweet ending to these Olympics was so poignantly displayed by Sifan Hassan. So, the thing is, she doesn’t actually compete with hijab on. She chooses to wear it when she chooses to wear it. But she chose it, to wear it, in this moment. And it was — I don’t — I can’t speak for her, and I’m not sure what her intention was, but the statement was most definitely made, I mean, to accept one of the biggest honors, the last medal ceremony, and, you know, in a host nation that literally violently prevents Black and Brown Muslim women who choose to wear hijab from sport. And people — and I think that’s one of the most underreported stories of these games, as well, was the fact that this host nation, who claims to participate and be part of this Olympics of gender parity, which is really hypocritical because they don’t even allow their own Olympians — French Olympians who are Muslim women and want to wear hijab cannot.

So the fact that that happened was just — it was remarkable. It was a remarkable moment. And it was a very beautiful and quiet message to women all around the world, and particularly those in France, who are prevented from participating at a local, recreational, you know, provincial or even in national programs. And I work with an organization, and follow them and report on them, called Basket Pour Toutes, and which is “Basketball for All,” is the translation, and the fact that that moment was done, I mean, the conversations were fluttering.

One of the things that I found heartening, Amy, was that it was being commented on in that narrative, which is really important, because, again, this is a story that France media, French media, didn’t actually want to pick up, because it’s shameful, as you mentioned earlier. It’s embarrassing, and it’s hypocritical. You can’t profess to support all women when you’re being selective in that support.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, Dave Zirin, I wanted to go to that incredible moment, the all-Black award podium of gymnasts. The Brazilian gymnast Rebeca Andrade and the U.S. gymnasts Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles made history last week as they accepted their medals for the first-ever all-Black podium in either men’s or women’s gymnastics. Simone Biles has won three golds and a silver in Paris, making her the most decorated U.S. gymnast in Olympic history. This incredible moment when Biles and Chiles bowed down to Andrade, who took home the gold despite competing with three torn ACLs. That was last week’s news.

And now you have the latest, where the Olympic Committee has ruled that Jordan Chiles must return her bronze medal in the women’s floor exercise after a Court of Arbitration for Sports ruling. In an update on August 11th, the International Olympic Committee sided with the ruling, confirming she could no longer be the bronze medalist, but the U.S. is appealing this. Explain it all.

DAVE ZIRIN: Well, first and foremost, with regards to Jordan Chiles, this is a terrible injustice for somebody who performed at her best and earned that medal. Now there’s also a discussion of them sharing the medal, but the IOC nixed that right away. So, here’s Jordan Chiles and her people stepping forward with this idea that is in the so-called, quote-unquote, “Olympic spirit” — you know, and, frankly, in the spirit of Biles and Chiles doing the bow to Andrade — like, this beautiful feeling of communal cooperation about people, what the Olympics is supposed to be about, about raising their level of performance. And instead to come down on Chiles like this, it leaves such a bittersweet taste in one’s mouth.

And frankly, I’m reminded of a story 1968 Olympian Dr. John Carlos told me, where he talked about how after he won his bronze medal and then he raised his fist on the medal stand, the International Olympic Committee showed up in his hotel room and demanded that he return the medal. And John Carlos’s response was to say, “Well, where are they?” And they looked at him quizzically and said, “Where are who?” And John Carlos said, “The army that you are going to need to take this medal from me.”

I mean, I hope that there is a similar result to this, where Jordan Chiles goes home and wears that medal proudly from her neck. If that’s a shared prospect, terrific. If that’s hers, terrific. But the idea of stripping it from her after such a beautiful moment, in an odd way, it speaks to the very contradictions of the Olympics themselves.