THE US SKI TEAM WILL NOT HAVE A MEXICO CITY MOMENT

EXAMINING THE RISK THAT TWO GROUPS OF ATHLETES TOOK AT THE OLYMPICS AND HOW THE US SKI TEAM CAN'T MEASURE UP

MEXICO CITY 1968 OLYMPICS

Mexico City, 1968: Protest With Consequences

1968 Summer Olympics

In the 200-meter medal ceremony at the 1968 Games, Tommie Smith (gold) and John Carlos (bronze) mounted the podium as representatives of the United States. As the anthem played, each raised a black-gloved fist—heads bowed, shoes off—to protest racial injustice and civil-rights failures at home.

They did not renounce Team USA beforehand. They did not seek permission. They did not insulate themselves from fallout. The protest was public, unmistakable, and irrevocable.

The response was swift. Under pressure from the International Olympic Committee, the U.S. Olympic establishment expelled Smith and Carlos from the Olympic Village. Both men faced immediate career damage, loss of income, threats, and years of professional exile. Whatever one’s view of their cause, the defining feature of the act is undeniable: they accepted punishment as the price of dissent. That willingness to lose everything is what gave the moment lasting moral weight.

A Moral Indictment of Performative Dissent in American Sport

U.S. Ski Team athletes who publicly disparage the American flag and the elected administration while continuing to compete under Team USA branding are not engaging in principled protest. They are engaging in risk-free theater—a performance carefully calibrated to preserve endorsements, stipends, and institutional protection.

That distinction matters.

The False Comparison They Invite

By their rhetoric, these athletes implicitly align themselves with figures who paid real prices for dissent. But history refuses the comparison.

1968 Summer Olympics remains the canonical example precisely because Tommie Smith and John Carlos did not posture. They protested after qualifying, after competing, after standing on the podium—and they accepted the consequences that followed: expulsion, career damage, and lifelong professional exile. They did not hedge. They did not pre-clear their dissent with sponsors. They did not demand applause without cost.

That willingness to lose everything is what gave their act moral gravity.

What Real Sacrifice Looks Like (and What It Doesn’t)

We also know—because it happened—that athletes can compete without national symbols when circumstances demand it. During the Russian doping scandal, competitors were forced into neutral status by the International Olympic Committee. Russian athletes competed without flag or anthem, stripped of national representation as a penalty. Whatever one thinks of that decision, it carried real cost and visible consequence.

By contrast, today’s American ski athletes had choices:

• They could have refused Team USA credentials.

• They could have declined U.S. sponsorship and funding.

• They could have protested on the podium, accepting suspension or expulsion.

• They could have competed only if allowed neutral status—and walked away when denied.

They did none of these.

Instead, they chose the path of maximum visibility with minimum risk.

The Moral Failure

To condemn the flag while wrapping oneself in its material benefits is not courage; it is moral arbitrage. It is leveraging the legitimacy of the nation to attack that same nation—while ensuring that the checks still clear.

This is why the conduct resembles stolen valor in spirit, if not in law. The athletes borrow the moral authority of historic sacrifice without paying its price. They adopt the language of rebellion while enjoying the insulation of corporate sponsorship, legal teams, and governing-body protection.

That is not dissent. It is clout-seeking.

Why This Harms the Image of the American Athlete

The American athlete has historically been admired not merely for performance, but for stakes—for competing in a system where symbols mean something, where representation carries obligation, and where protest carries risk.

When athletes trivialize that tradition—using national platforms to posture while refusing any meaningful consequence—they cheapen both protest and patriotism. They turn civic seriousness into lifestyle branding.

The Verdict

History is not kind to pretenders.

Smith and Carlos are remembered because they were willing to be punished. Neutral Russian athletes are remembered because their nation was actually sanctioned. The modern American ski protester who denounces the flag while cashing Team USA checks will be remembered, if at all, as a poseur—someone who wanted the glow of rebellion without the burn.

That is not bravery.That is not sacrifice.And it is, undeniably, another sad day for the image of the American athlete.

Vignette II — PyeongChang, 2018: Neutrality as Sanction

2018 Winter Olympics

Following revelations of state-sponsored doping in Russian sport, the IOC imposed a rare, structural penalty: Russia was barred from competing as a nation. Yet individual athletes who passed enhanced testing were allowed to participate under a neutral designation—“Olympic Athletes from Russia” (OAR).

This was not protest. It was punishment.

OAR competitors skated and skied without the Russian flag, without national colors, and without their anthem. When they won medals, the Olympic flag was raised and a generic anthem played. The arrangement preserved individual competition while visibly sanctioning the state. Neutrality carried stigma and constraint; it was the point.

The distinction matters. Unlike symbolic protest, neutral status here reflected institutional enforcement—a tangible loss of national identity imposed from above, accepted by athletes as the cost of competing at all.

The Throughline

Both moments involved athletes on the world’s biggest stage—but for opposite reasons. Mexico City endures because protest was chosen with full knowledge of consequences. PyeongChang stands because neutrality was imposed as consequence itself. In each case, meaning flowed from cost.