The Olympic Games have been criticized as upholding (and in some cases increasing) the colonial policies and practices of some host nations and cities either in the name of the Olympics by associated parties or directly by official Olympic bodies, such as the International Olympic Committee, host organizing committees and official sponsors.

The founder of the modern Olympic Games, French educator Charles Pierre de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin wrote that sport and colonialism were "natural companions", terming sport "a vigorous instrument of the disciplining" of colonized people, and viewed it as a calming force in the French colonial empire.Coubertin, Pierre de (1912). "Les sports et la Colonisation", Revue Olympique (January): 7–10, cited in Schantz 2008, p. 177.

Critics have claimed that the Olympics have engaged in or caused: erroneous anthropological and colonial knowledge production; erasure; commodificationDefinition: "...the process of transforming an object, idea, activity, or service into a commodity by capitalist economies." Beaster-Jones 2013, par. 1. and appropriation of indigenous ceremonies and symbolism; theft and inappropriate display of indigenous objects; further encroachment on and support of the theft of indigenous lands; and neglect or intensification of poor social conditions for indigenous peoples.

Olympic Games as a colonial force and recommendations The founder of the modern Olympic Games, French educator Pierre de Coubertin wrote that sport and colonialism were "natural companions". He called sports "a vigorous instrument of the disciplining" of colonized people, and viewed it as a calming force in the French colonial empire. O'Bonsawin writes that Olympism, as a philosophy, speaks "in truisms of equity, anti-discrimination, mutual recognition and respect, tolerance and solidarity".O'Bonsawin 2008, p. 144. But she and other critics argue that in reality Olympism serves as an apologetic for a movement that is actually "deeply politicized and xenophobic".Wamsley, Kevin B. "Laying Olympism to Rest", Post-Olympism? Questioning Sport in the Twentieth-First Century, edited by John Bale and Mette Krogh Christensen, 231–242. Oxford: Berg, 2004, quoted in O'Bonsawin 2008, p. 144. O'Bonsawin also argues that in encouraging Olympic participants to "cast aside everyday lived experiences ... shaped by such factors as race, gender, sexuality, religion, culture, ideology, and class" Olympism itself erases the realities of marginalized peoples.

To address this erasure and the disparity between Olympism ideals and Games practice, O'Bonsawin recommends that the IOC restructure their bid evaluation process so that they can determine whether bidding countries respect the human rights and needs of marginalized peoples.O'Bonsawin 2008, p. 153. Instrumental to this restructuring would be the inclusion of external consultation and evaluation.

1904 Summer Olympics

Louisiana Purchase Exposition and human zoos

The 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri, were held in conjunction with the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (also known as the St. Louis World's Fair), and were the first modern Olympic Games to be held in North America.International Olympic Committee. http://www.olympic.org/olympic-games. Retrieved 20 Feb 2013. Since the 1889 Paris Exposition, human zoos, as a key feature of world's fairs, functioned as demonstrations of anthropological notions of race, progress, and civilization. These goals were followed also at the 1904 World's Fair. Fourteen hundred indigenous people from Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, East Asia, Africa, the Middle East, South America and North America were displayed in anthropological exhibits that showed them in their natural habitats.Parezo 2008, p. 63. Another 1,600 indigenous people displayed their culture in other areas of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (LPE),Brownell 2008, p. 32. including on the fairgrounds and at the Model School,Peavy, Linda and Ursula Smith, 2008, p. 246. where American Indian boarding schools students demonstrated their successful assimilation.

Anthropology Days According to theorist Susan Brownell, since the 1889 Paris Exposition, world's fairs – with their inclusion of human zoos – and the Olympics were a logical fit at this time, as they "were both linked to an underlying cultural logic that gave them a natural affinity".Brownell, 2008, p. 29. Taking this natural fit to the next level, two key figures at the 1904 World's Fair – William John McGee and James Edward Sullivan – devised an event that would bring anthropology and sport together: Anthropology Days.

W. J. McGee was the head of the Department of Anthropology at the LPE and the founding president of the new American Anthropological Association.Brownell 2008, p. 14.

While Anthropology Days were not officially part of the Olympics program, they were closely associated with each other at the time, and in history—Brownell notes that even today historians still debate as to which of the LPE events were the "real" Olympic Games.Brownell 2008, p. 3. Additionally, almost all of the 400 athletic events were referred to as "Olympian," and the opening ceremony was held in MayBrownell 2008, p. 43. with dignitaries in attendance, though the official Olympic program did not begin until July 1. Also, as previously noted, one of the original intentions of Anthropology Days was to create publicity for the official Olympic events.Parezo 2008, p. 84.Brownell 2008, p. 34.

Anthropology Days took place on August 11 and 12, 1904, with about 100 paid indigenous men. Contests included "baseball throwing, shot put, running, broad jumping, weight lifting, pole climbing, and tugs-of-war before a crowd of approximately ten thousand".Parezo 2008, p. 59. No women participated in Anthropology Days, though some, notably the Fort Shaw Indian School girls basketball team, did compete in other athletic events at the LPE.

1936 Summer Games Sohn Kee-chung and Nam Sung-yong were Korean subjects of the Empire of Japan, which ruled Korea, which it called Chōsen, since the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910. Their medals have been listed as Japanese, since they competed for Japan under Japanese names. In 2025, the IOC added context about the colonial background of their participation.

1976 Summer Olympics

Context The 1976 Summer Olympics have been criticized for a lack of consultation and the spectacular display of indigenous people in the closing ceremony. Sport scholar Christine O'Bonsawin explains how "Montreal organizers strategically included indigenous people and imagery in the closing ceremony at a time when Canadian indigenous and government relations were operating under heightened tensions".O'Bonsawin 2012, p. 37. She is referring to then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's 1969 Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy (also called the White Paper), which was perceived by some Canadian indigenous people as a further attempt at assimilation.O'Bonsawin 2012, pp. 37–38.

La Danse Sauvage O'Bonsawin describes how amid these tensions the Montreal Olympic Games' closing ceremony employed indigenous symbolism without consultation with local First Nations.O'Bonsawin 2012, p. 39. Hundreds of performers were enlisted to perform a "tribal" dance that was choreographed by a non-indigenous choreographer, to a musical score (La Danse Sauvage, "The Savage Dance") created by a non-indigenous composer.O'Bonsawin 2012, p. 40. Only 200 of the 450 performers were indigenous, with the other 250 being non-indigenous people costumed and painted in "redface"—it was these non-indigenous performers who led the indigenous people into the stadium. O'Bonsawin notes that particularly problematic about this approach to including indigenous "participation" is that it became a model for future Canadian Olympic Games.

1988 Winter Olympics

Lessons from the 1976 Summer Olympics The 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta reflected some lessons learned from criticism of the 1976 games, but according to critics, they still perpetuated legacies of erasure, cultural and land theft, and appropriation committed by past Games and Canadian governmental bodies.

O'Bonsawin writes that there was significant protest from indigenous people against the use and appropriation of indigenous imagery in the 1988 Winter Games.O'Bonsawin 2012, p. 41. This imagery included "indigenous sounds, sights, and images [and] a massive teepee" in the opening ceremony,O'Bonsawin 2012, p. 49. and medals depicting "winter sporting equipment protruding from a ceremonial headdress".O'Bonsawin 2010, p. 147.

Conflict with the Lubicon Lake Indian Nation The 1988 Winter Games were also the subject of an international boycott called by the Lubicon Lake Indian Nation, a small community in northern Alberta. Their reasons centered around what they considered the illegal sale of their unceded lands to oil companies—unceded because they had been left out of the 1899 and 1900 treaties and the federal government was still not willing to negotiate a treaty.O'Bonsawin 2012, p. 42. While corporations extracted resources from their lands, the Lubicon Cree were experiencing "a 93% decline in their annual trapping income, high rates of alcoholism, a tuberculosis crisis, and malnourishment in the community".Ferreira, D.A. (1992). "Oil and Lubicons don't mix: A land claim in northern Alberta in historical perspective", Canadian Journal of Native Studies. 12(1): 1-35, cited by O'Bonsawin 2012, p. 42.

The Lubicon Cree focused their boycott on a specific Olympic event: The Spirit Sings exhibit at the Glenbow Museum, part of the official cultural programming of the Games. They protested this exhibit on several grounds, including that almost half of its funding came from Shell Oil Canada—the very company drilling for oil on their unceded land.Cooper 2008, p. 22. The exhibit consisted of indigenous Canadian artifacts, art and objects gathered from collections around the world.O'Bonsawin 2012, p. 43. Of this, Lubicon Chief Bernard Ominayak said: "[The] irony of using a display of North American Indian artifacts to attract people to the Winter Olympics being organized by interests who are still actively seeking to destroy Indian people seems painfully obvious."Ominayak, Chief Bernard (1989) "Aboriginal land rights in Canada – myth and reality", NISTO – Lubicon Lake Indian Nation. http://nisto.com/cree/lubicon/, cited in O'Bonsawin 2012, p. 43.

The Lubicon Cree claimed that the 665 artifacts in the exhibit had originally been stolen—expatriated from indigenous communities and displayed in Europe for public consumption and curiosity.O'Bonsawin 2012, p. 44. Additionally "many of the objects were sacred and not intended for public display", including a Mohawk False Face mask. O'Bonsawin discusses how the Glenbow Museum committed a "second and more disgraceful wave of thievery" by returning the artifacts to the collections and museums who had loaned them, and refusing to assist indigenous groups in getting these items repatriated back to their communities. The discourse generated by the Lubicon boycott of The Spirit Sings resulted in the formation of a task force that eventually released a ground-breaking report that continues to influence how museum professionals approach working with indigenous communities.Cooper 2008, pp. 25–28.

In addition to the boycott of The Spirit Sings, the torch relay run was targeted by protesters for its sponsorship by Petro-Canada, which was "invading indigenous territories (including Lubicon lands) across Canada".O'Bonsawin 2012, p. 47. Indigenous objection was not confined to the Lubicon Cree since "protestors were present along the relay route in every province except Prince Edward Island".O'Bonsawin 2012, p. 48. Of these protests, former Olympiques Calgary Olympics (OCO) chairperson later wrote: "There was no room for defiance or confrontation ..."

2008 Summer Olympics

Tibet