Much like a couple billion people across the planet, Dr. Bill Smith is glued to the Summer Olympic Games In Paris. But it’s a big part of his scholarship. He’s a clinical professor at the University of Idaho whose courses include Advanced UN Studies, Diplomatic History and Sports and International Affairs. He’s also the director of the U of I’s Martin Institute.

“I just gave a lecture for my class on Sports and International Affairs that reminds us that there are more nations in the Olympics than there are in the United Nations,” said Smith.

Martin, who has lived in Mexico, Spain and Portugal, looks at the planet’s most-famous athletic event, not just through a global lens, but as he puts it, “a romantic realist.”

“Yeah, essentially, I consider myself as passionately dispassionate,” said Smith. “I understand all the complexities and problems that are going on. But I’m also thrilled for my friends in Guatemala who just won their first-ever gold medal.”

In his visit with Morning Edition host George Prentice, Smith talked about some of his favorite off-the-radar competitions at this summer’s games. But they also take a deep dive in the long shadow that doping casts across the competition, plus the so-called “Olympic Truce,” particularly at a time when there are so many corners of the world in conflict.

Read the full transcript below.

GEORGE PRENTICE: It's Morning Edition. Hi. I'm George Prentice. Let's talk Olympics. We're now into a second week of the Summer Games in Paris, and something tells us that the best may be yet to come. We are fortunate to have an expert in international sport to join us this morning. Doctor Bill Smith is a clinical professor and director of the University of Idaho's Martin Institute, so this should be fun. Hi, Doctor Smith, good morning. This is your scholarship. You've lived around the world. But how do you see the Olympics?

BILL SMITH: Yeah. You know, I'm a product of my childhoods during the Cold War, and it was really difficult to consume any media, much less sporting media, and not be exposed to the greater themes beyond sport that the Olympics provided, that the Wide World of sports program and ABC provided. It was always there. So to me it was a natural extension and was a way not to have a particular lens, but to have all the lenses. Right. Uh, and so in this case, if you understand sports and the sporting, uh, environment and the rhythm of international sport, you can come to know almost everything else that's happening in the world.

PRENTICE: More nations in the Olympics than there are in the United Nations, right?

SMITH: Yeah. Just recorded a lecture for my class on sports and national affairs that starts with that point and looks at how that works and why that works.

PRENTICE: We need to talk about doping and the anti-doping movement. Us lawmakers, as recently as just the other day, are threatening funding for WADA, the world Anti-Doping agency, for they're basically saying that they look the other way often. But now the IOC has told the US to back off a little. They could jeopardize the recently announced Salt Lake City Olympics. Uh, we have some of our top athletes, beginning with Michael Phelps voicing anger and distrust over WADA. Where are we with this? Uh, is it, uh, something that everyone knows but not everyone chooses to recognize?

SMITH: So WADA, to me is one of the great examples of partnership politics that comes out of the 1990s, when countries are embarrassed to talk about, uh, you know, the idea of national pride in an Olympics. Canada, among others, suffered national shame when they had, you know, the fastest man in the world, then test positive for anabolic steroids and be stripped of his medal. And so they become active in the movement. And a lot of Canadian sporting officials become active in the movement to get something going. The IOC wanted to control this, but it ended up being more a partnership between, uh, sporting federations, the IOC, governments and scientists. So when water comes out of the Treaty of Lausanne in the late 1990s, it's this example of what's possible when different kinds of entities work together. But once you have that complex organization, there's lots of levers one can pull to to manipulate it in your own favor. It relies on the honesty of member, uh, federations or member offices. So like the US, Ada or the Chinese Anti-Doping agency. And that's where our complaint really lies, is with the Ada and its relationship with WADA.

PRENTICE: Well, we do know that there are athletes in Paris that have tested positive for doping previously. Yes.

SMITH: Yes. Uh, and some, uh, are rehabilitated, meaning they endured their punishment. They've come back. And so they're not under active suspicion. The ones that are, uh, the swimmers and others are objecting to are the swimmers who we know had some sort of positive result that was covered up. And so they haven't served a penance. They aren't back and clean. They're still under suspicion.

PRENTICE: Could you remind our listeners a little bit about the IOC and how they do not like anyone's fingers wagging in front of them?

SMITH: So the IOC is a non-governmental organization. It just has a different focus. We think of NGOs and non-profits. We usually think of the Red cross, or we might think of Amnesty International or something like that. The IOC is an NGO. And so in that case, nominally they're less powerful than states, but they haven't have a product, an event that states want to participate in, they find value in. And so they can ask states to adjust things in their favor, just like FIFA can for soccer, and ask for concessions that you otherwise wouldn't make for a non non-governmental or nonprofit organization. So they have that event that we're interested in that we're interested in hosting. Uh, so Salt Lake signed on that agreement uh, last week that has the clause that says if you mess with with water and with our testing system, we can pull the games. Now, I don't think that would happen, but it's certainly there and they can get away with it. And and other non-governmental organizations cannot.

PRENTICE: Let's talk about an Olympic truce. I as a matter of fact, I don't think many people know about the Olympic truce, even though it dates back to BC. There indeed are conflicts on so many sides, and so remind us of what that is. It's a resolution, right? It's about what, a few days before and a few days after the games. Right.

SMITH: Supported by the IOC, but comes typically from the United Nations. This was a concept resurrected in the 1990s, when we were pretty optimistic in the post Cold War era. There were a lot of exciting things happening around the world in terms of providing humanitarian assistance and conceptualizing conflict differently because we didn't have that big interstate, uh, threat facing us after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. So it does capture the ideal that many of the ancient games did. Not all of them, but many of the ancient Olympiads did. But I think it's important to keep in mind the concept of a truce, because in conflict studies, there's a ceasefire and the cessation of hostilities, and they are kind of ranked in that way. And what you expect in a truce is typically an informal, short term, non-binding agreement. And that is what comes from the UN is also a statement intended to be non-binding statement of intent, a statement of aspiration, if you will. Uh, so we we we pass that we as a global community every two years in advance of the Summer Olympics and the Winter Olympics, uh, and try to emphasize the ideal of what we hope will be embodied in the Olympics.

PRENTICE: But to be clear, you and I could actually list nations that are currently at war if not at conflict with one another.

SMITH: And the ones who are most famously at war were not invited to the Olympics. That would be Belarus. So you may remember the last time we were talking about Russia not participating. It was because of their violations in the drug regime, because they had state sponsored doping and they were not becoming forthcoming. But the IOC is interesting. The Olympics are interesting because they actually are an event that has no sports of their own. They permit access to the sporting federations like the swimming federation, track and field, soccer, etc. and so what the Olympics did was say we weren't going to allow the Russian Olympic Committee to come, but you sports are allowed to invite Russian athletes if you want to. Uh, and they didn't compete under the flag, etc. but that was when it was just, uh, the, the drug regime that was under question. Uh, when they invaded, uh, invaded Ukraine this last time. Then there's a cessation of all membership and sporting organizations. There is no access point.

PRENTICE: I am fascinated, I'm certain you are too, by the athletes who march under the flag of the refugee flag. I think 30 some athletes this time, and what I'm fascinated by that is that it has served as a bridge. Many previous athletes have found home countries and but there just happened to be without a home in this moment, in spite of the fact that they are among some of the best in the world.

SMITH: So there have been even 2016 was the first year we had the unaffiliated, the the refugee team, but there had been, uh, refugees who had been resettled, uh, in the games before that, uh, famously, United States had a flagbearer named Lopez Lomong, a track and field, track and field athlete who had been one of the Sudanese Lost Boys of the early 2000. But he had been resettled to the United States and had become a US citizen. Uh, so he was a refugee at one point, was a US citizen, uh, then became our flag bearer. So these are for folks who have not yet been resettled, uh, and or are without citizenship. They're stateless peoples. And so you're right. There could be an attraction from a state. Could say we want to have them come, uh, be with us. But it is, um, I should say, a reflection of our time. Now, one of the things I like to do is, uh. And I've enjoyed Peacock's coverage because they have all the feeds of all the events, not just the stuff we would get in the evening, but to watch, for example, the the early heats of the 100 meter free, uh, same thing will happen next week at Track and field, where you allow athletes countries access who might not otherwise qualify based on their times. And so you can see ten heats of the 100 meter free. And the athletes from all these places who are competing, who are really hoping for a medal but are thrilled at the opportunity to participate and be seen.

PRENTICE: And even though some of them may be up to 10s behind the world record. That's right. It is a thrill, to be sure. So I'm glad you brought up Peacock, because, boy, they're doing a lot of things right technically. But when you put your scholarship aside, what are you watching a little bit more than the others?

SMITH: Yeah, essentially, because I consider myself in the sense, uh, passionately dispassionate, uh, or uh, because, you know, I'm a, I'm a romantic realist. I understand all the complexities and all sometimes the problems that are going on. But the, the lure of the sporting event itself also occupies equal space. Uh, maybe I have a heart in it and a mind in it, but I sure I thrilled for my friends from Guatemala when Adriana Ruano won the first ever gold medal for Guatemala in the women's trap. Pretty cool. I love seeing Alex Cedric's face as she sprinted towards the the winning points or the tying points in the gold medal women's rugby game. That grin. Just imagine that you're in the last second, the last play sprinting the full field to to score to win your country's first, uh, medal in an event in more than 100 years. I love the complexity of what Northern Irish athletes go through, where they have to decide because there is no Northern Ireland in the Olympics, there's a Great Britain and there's an Ireland, and they have to choose. For a guy like Rory McIlroy, who was the top golfer in the world from Northern Ireland, who had to navigate that, it was very tricky. Uh, Daniel Wiffen winning for Ireland. He's a Northern Irish runner. It means he is British, but he's not from Great Britain. He's from Northern Ireland, but competing for Ireland. Neat moment and complex stories. And then I love the eyes of Jess Fox, the, uh, canoe slalom racer for Australia. Watching her eyes as she navigates the slalom is really neat.

PRENTICE: Those two year point, those up close moments of those athletes.

SMITH: Yeah, watching hat they do and the incredible core strength and, uh, stuff that has to be, uh, for them. Seated, uh, with their legs prone, uh, to be able to, to make those maneuvers, especially back upstream. Uh, I'm really enjoying that.

PRENTICE: Well, we are off to the races this week because track and field. Wow. It is really ramping up. And, uh, doctor Bill Smith, I look forward to more conversations. And let's not, uh, let's not wait for the next Olympics to talk again. Thank you so very much for giving me some time.

SMITH: Welcome. Cheers.

Find reporter George Prentice @georgepren

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