BUDAPEST Népszabadsàg (independent), Sept. 15: Most sports could not survive without a few thousand years of ritual and the impetus of national pride. It is good that these sports do survive. They provide opportunities for countries and athletes who do not make it to the big stage of entertainment sports. Think of track and field, where Kenyans, Moroccans, Algerians, Namibians, Ethiopians, and the best of Trinidad and Tobago run before the rest of the world. Where else could these countries be recognized other than in an event where 2 billion people watch athletes chasing each other in shorts and T-shirts? Today, when there are a hundred local wars going on in the world, virtually all nations of the globe are gathering in Sydney to find out who the best athletes are, based on common and accepted rules. If nothing else, this should give us hope that the Games will remain a celebration of victory for attaining the highest form of justice in a world of money, power, and entertainment.
—Péter N. Nagy

TOKYO The Japan Times (independent), Sept. 15: The quadrennial soap opera that is the Summer Olympics gets under way again today in Sydney, inspiring the usual mixed response of blahs and hurrahs. Nobody disputes that the Summer Games have become the world’s biggest recurrent spectacle, costing more than some countries’ gross domestic product and cornier than Kansas. But opinion is split on whether this giant sportsfest is a welcome thing or a boring, scandal-ridden extravaganza to be avoided at all costs. Sports junkies and grumpy old cynics know where they stand. For the rest of us, it’s a bit of a toss-up.

LONDON Daily Telegraph (conservative), Sept. 15: One statistic describes the 27th Olympiad, as it likes to call itself when it is in “serious” mode. There are more accredited media types (16,000) than athletes (11,000), and more dancers and flag-twirlers in the opening ceremony than there are people in shorts and spikes.…The beauty of having 16,000 journalists in a single park, of course, is that nothing stays hidden for long. For gold medalists, the media work as a great neural network, conveying news of their victory in a flash and turning the lucky ones into legends and millionaires.                                               —Paul Hayward

SYDNEY The Australian (centrist), Sept.11: How dare the International Olympic Committee criticize Australia for refusing to give visas to suspected criminals. Instead, the IOC should be condemned for embracing members with alleged gang links, and that condemnation should be doubled for pressuring Australia to do the same. The [Australian] government is right to subordinate its obligations to the dysfunctional Olympic family to its responsibility for the safety of its own people and upholding its own laws.

PRAGUE The Prague Post (independent), Sept. 13: Such physical sports as cycling and U.S. professional football are rife with hormone use. Winning is no longer a tip-of-the-hat indulgence; winning now means millions, even billions—in any currency. Purity cannot be legislated any more than poverty can be distinguished. What the IOC and the other sporting bodies should seek is the creation of a binding blacklist of drugs and hormones that put athletes at evident physical risk. The rest, in this success-driven era, should be laid to rest.

MOSCOW The Russia Journal (business-oriented), Sept. 22: Just like in Soviet times, Russia’s Olympic team has been burdened with a mission of state importance—to give the Russian people an injection of national pride. Olympic victories would be the perfect rallying call for the Kremlin in its search to consolidate the people around a national idea.
—Ekaterina Larina

LAGOS Sunday Times (independent), Sept. 17: The truth is there is just too much football for professional footballers to cope with these days without some form of harmonization of the global football calendar. But achieving harmony will be most challenging as priorities so obviously differ from one region to another. Take the Olympics, for instance. They certainly mean a lot in Asia and Africa, where the continental club competitions have all been suspended to make way for the Games. It’s a different ball game in Europe. Of the major European leagues, only the Italians have delayed the start of
the season on account of Sydney 2000.
—Sola Egunjobi