♪♪ >> Hello and welcome to "GZERO World."

I'm Ian Bremmer.

And, today, we are looking at the role of politics in sports.

With COVID rates rising globally, this year's Olympics faced some major hurdles, to say the least, and the pandemic was only part of the picture.

The Tokyo Games played out against the backdrop of mounting global tensions surrounding gender equality, racism, human rights, leaving many people to examine the place of politics on the playing field and the podium.

I'm talking to Dick Pound, the longest-serving member of the International Olympic Committee, founding president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, and a former Olympic athlete himself.

Then, the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team is the most decorated team in the sport, but are they paid as much as their male counterparts?

A look at what equal pay for equal play means.

Don't worry -- I've also got your "Puppet Regime."

>> How do you feel?

>> Well, I've only gotten faster and stronger.

>> But, first, a word from the folks who help us keep the lights on.

>> Major corporate funding provided by founding sponsor First Republic.

At First Republic, our clients come first.

Taking the time to listen helps us provide customized banking and wealth-management solutions.

More on our clients at firstrepublic.com.

Additional funding provided by... and by.... ♪♪ >> "Sports and politics don't mix."

That quote comes from a legendary U.S. athlete, speed skater Eric Heiden.

You remember him, all those gold medals.

He won an unprecedented five back at the 1980 Olympic Games in Lake Placid.

His remarks were in response to President Jimmy Carter's boycott of the Summer Games that same year in Moscow.

Carter's decision was a reaction to Russia's invasion of Afghanistan.

Ultimately, 65 nations said, "Do svidaniya" -- that means "goodbye" -- to the Olympics that year.

Certainly, it wasn't the first time sports and politics would mix into an explosive combination, and we all know it wasn't the last.

In fact, more than a decade before, two other American Olympians made some history of their own.

On the podium in Mexico City, after they both medaled in the 200-meter race, Tommie Smith and John Carlos each raised a fist.

Their protest for racial equality and human rights got them banned from all future Games.

A few years after that dramatic moment, the International Olympic Committee introduced Rule 50 to its charter, which reads, in part, "It is a fundamental principle that sport is neutral and must be separate from political, religious, or any other type of interference."

The rule was meant to ban expressions of politics on fields of play, on medal podiums, and during official ceremonies.

A lot's happened in sports and in the world since then, causing people to rethink the spirit of that rule.

In pro sports, we've had athletes, like Colin Kaepernick and LeBron James, leading national movements against police brutality and racism.

Just don't ask LeBron about Hong Kong.

U.S. soccer star Megan Rapinoe testified before Congress about inequity in pay for female athletes.

>> There's no level of status and there's no accomplishment or power that will protect you from the clutches of inequality.

>> Not surprisingly, these moves have been controversial.

President Trump famously blasted Kaepernick and other NFL players who took a stand on the field, who kneeled on the field, actually, drawing comparisons to the "Shut up and sing" firestorm that the Dixie Chicks faced back in 2003 after they protested the Iraq War.

By the way, they're now known just as The Chicks.

Dropping "Dixie" was also for political reasons.

I guess, dropping "Chicks," unnecessary.

But like the antebellum South, the divide between politics and sports that Eric Heiden hoped for is also becoming history.

Last year, the head of the IOC published an op-ed, saying the Olympic Games are not about politics.

He was calling for neutrality in what was certain to be a polarized moment in Japan.

Still, as the Tokyo Games wrap up, they'll be remembered not just for the pandemic or the heated local battles over whether they should have happened at all, they are also a moment when Rule 50 got pretty questionable.

Whether it was soccer players taking a knee or German gymnasts in full-body leotards or Australian athletes holding up an indigenous flag, there's been an awful lot of protesting going on and perhaps a relaxing of the rules, at least a bit.

Looking ahead to Beijing and the Winter Games in 2022, it remains to be seen if this new Olympic spirit is going to cross borders or if a repeat of the 1980 boycott is just a hammer throw away.

What does all this mean for sports and the future of the Olympic Games?

That's what we're talking about today.

Dick Pound, thank you so much for joining us on "GZERO World."

>> Pleasure.

>> So, you're a long-standing member of the IOC right now, and you've never been afraid to speak your mind.

So, here you are in Tokyo.

I would love to hear your unvarnished opinion about how this thing is going.

I mean, something that I'm not going to read in the press releases.

>> Well, it's actually -- from an Olympic-sport perspective and a broadcasting perspective and all that, it's going entirely normally.

The competition is fantastic.

The television images going around the world, as fantastic as we thought they would be.

It's just, on the ground a little bit, the COVID specter is affecting the Japanese public more than we thought.

And while they're getting into the Games, and especially because Japan is having quite a good Games, sort of the opposition to the idea of proceeding with the Games has gradually dissolved.

But there's this overriding concern among the Japanese public that the people coming into the Games are in some way responsible for the spreading of the virus, notwithstanding the fact that they're all in very secure bubbles, you know, including the IOC, including the athletes in the village.

So there's that tension that still exists, but it's not interfering with the sport, which is well-organized.

And the athletes are getting the chance that they hoped and prayed for ever since last -- a year ago, March, when the postponement was announced.

So, in that respect, it's been terrific.

And my guess is that audiences around the world are enjoying the sport.

>> What's the single thing that's surprised you most so far, something you really would have not in any way expected before you actually showed up in Tokyo?

>> I guess it is the growing resistance among the Japanese public, sort of not terribly active opposition, but just a resentment, I guess, in some respect, of the additional risk that they perceive coming from the outsiders, even though, I mean, the tests and the statistics show that it's simply not a viable concern.

>> So, I want to move to an issue that's becoming much more challenging, this Article 50 that's talking about neutrality in sports and not having any political displays or demonstrations by athletes at all.

There's been a lot of that, of course, in Tokyo this time around.

Tell me a little bit about how you are thinking about that, how you're addressing the topic.

>> Certainly, it's been overplayed in the media, with respect to the freedom of speech of athletes.

They're free, frankly, to say whatever they want, you know, within legal limits and so forth.

What we've said is that the field of play is not an appropriate venue in which to make your protests.

While a race or a game is going on, it's not appropriate, and it's not appropriate in the medal presentations, but in press conferences and interviews and all that sort of thing, athletes are entirely free to express whatever they like.

But we don't think it's appropriate, on the field of play, to interfere with the field of play.

I've always thought you're at the Olympics to demonstrate that it is possible for 206 countries to be together, peacefully compete, you know, in accordance with agreed-upon rules, and so on.

It's kind of an oasis in the middle of an increasingly tense world, and we shouldn't be spoiling that by pointing out the obvious, which is that there are social and political problems that exist in the world and that the world is not perfect.

>> And, I mean, at a time when conflict and polarization and tribalism is becoming so much greater, it seems like the Olympics are one of the only places where we get to celebrate common humanity as opposed to demonize it.

>> I mean, I remember back before you were born, in Rome, it was at the nadir of the Cold War of the day.

And, you know, the Soviets were these two-dimensional ogres that we all read about in the papers.

But when you're there -- and I was a swimmer -- and you see Russian swimmers, and they're just as nervous as we were and some of them are nervous enough that they go and throw up before their races.

And they were real people.

And if you did a certain time, you knew what went into that performance for yourself, and if somebody has done the same thing, you know that he went through that sort of thing, too.

So you share this kind of a common unspoken bond of respect for the efforts.

And, you know, we're trying to beat each other in the races, but it's different from beating a Soviet.

>> Yeah, the Soviets throw up just like the Canadians.

I mean, surely, we can hug it out after that.

>> Well, you'd think, and all of that is a broadening of one's experience, broadening one's appreciation for how people can make the impossible look easy.

>> The next Olympics, of course, are becoming enormously politically heated, in Beijing this coming winter.

And, of course, when Beijing first hosted the Olympics, this was a milestone.

This kind of was them coming out on the global stage.

Today, China's position is very different.

How do you think China's going to handle these Games at this point?

I mean, I know they haven't even made an announcement about whether or not they're going to have fans.

Where do you think that's going to go?

>> Well, I think, like everyone, China is sort of waiting to see how the pandemic plays out.

And I think they would certainly like to have fans.

But, you know, in a country the size of China, you've got to be careful that a pandemic does not really take hold.

So they'll be watching that pretty carefully.

And I hope that there will be fans.

It looks like there will be certainly some political agitation around the edges from the rest of the world.

I think it's pretty clear that there's no appetite to prevent athletes from going and participating.

The issue is how our government's going to express their disapproval of a number of Chinese government policies.

And, you know, governments have their ways of sending signals.

And, I mean, for example, you could make sure, if we're talking about the United States, that no U.S. government official accepts any invitation to go there during the Games.

>> And Canada, of course, is in the middle of this.

On the one hand, Canada hits way above its weight in terms of its importance in the Winter Olympics and the role of its athletes.

On the other hand, we have this extremely painful diplomatic problem with the two Michaels, who are being held illegally and now for quite some time by the Chinese government.

>> It's been over two years since Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig were arbitrarily detained in China following the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou.

They sit in Chinese prisons as she remains under house arrest in Vancouver, awaiting an extradition ruling.

>> What do you think the Canadian response should be, assuming that this situation persists?

>> Well, my guess is that Canada would be very reluctant to send any government officials in the circumstances.

I mean, I think they know this is a tit for tat.

But I don't think the Canadian government will go so far as to say, in effect, to China, "We're so angry with your abrogation of the civil rights of segments of your society that we are going to show how mad we are by taking away all the civil rights of our athletes and preventing them from participating."

You know, we tried that in Moscow, and it didn't work.

And everyone knows that it doesn't work.

There will be no conduct change as the result of an Olympic boycott.

So my guess is that our athletes will go and our officials probably will not go.

>> Whenever you talk about the Olympics, of course, there's always a series of headlines about how much it costs, about the extraordinary cost overruns that have bedeviled pretty much every Olympics and so many infrastructure projects, definitely.

You have any advice for how to get it, if not right, at least better as a host country?

>> Figure out what you need for your country before you start the planning.

And I must say that if you have all of the facilities in place, you can host the Olympic Games without any impact on your tax budget in the host countries.

You know, between television and sponsorships and tickets, you can organize Olympic Games.

>> I note that the latest award of an Olympics went to Brisbane, and they set off some fireworks, but it was uncontested.

And, you know, when I was growing up, I mean, you know, a bid for the Olympics was something that the cities would hotly contest and were really excited about.

How could it be that only one city would compete for an Olympics bid?

>> Well, I think one of the difficulties is that, in the developed democracies, as you know -- and it's the same in my country and yours -- 25% of the people are against everything all the time.

And so if you're trying to put together an Olympic candidacy, if you go out to the remaining public and you have a 2-to-1 success rate, you're still only back to 50/50.

So we said, "Let's turn this into a conversation of, 'How can we help you maximize the benefit for your country while still being able to put on the Games?'"

And that is a dialogue that has started with a number of countries.

It happened that Australia was pretty quick out of the blocks with a very, very good candidate, and that kind of scared away the others -- or not scared away, but just said, "Well, listen, we're not quite ready yet."

I mean, there's actually quite a lot of interest out there for and an appetite for the Olympics.

You need to start earlier and work far more closely with the institutions within each country to make sure that they understand what's involved, rather than simply a figure that nobody really understands and which sounds very high.

>> Tell me the one city -- and it can't be in Canada -- that has never hosted an Olympics before that would most -- that most should and why.

>> I've always thought Istanbul would be a fantastic Olympic city, and I remember one of their first mottos.

I thought it was one of the best I've ever heard.

It says, "Let's meet where the continents meet."

And that certainly resonated with me.

And so I had -- There are lots of countries out there that could do this, but there are also lots of countries that really cannot realistically hope to be an Olympic host.

I mean, Honduras or Guatemala or, you know, countries like that, they simply don't have the infrastructure, and a balance of picking countries that can actually do what's necessary to organize the Games.

And we're now -- You know, London, Paris, Los Angeles have all had the Games or will have had the Games three times.

Tokyo, this is the second time for Tokyo.

In 1964, they amazed the world with the emergence of Japan as a modern nation.

And I think had we been able to proceed in 2020, there would have been a new Olympic paradigm, because the organizational level in Japan for these Games has just been fantastic.

You know, imagine being able to stop your 747 in mid-flight for a year and then continue the way they have this year.

I don't know that there's another country in the world that could have done that.

So, there remains an appetite for the Olympics, but I think it has to be approached differently so that the general people in prospective host countries understand what it means and what's involved and what the benefits are.

>> Dick Pound of the IOC, thanks for joining us today from Tokyo.

Really appreciate it.

>> Nice to be with you.

Thank you.

♪♪ >> Just as festivities kicked off in Tokyo, the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team filed their first brief in an appeal of their ongoing equal-pay lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation.

The move comes one year after a judge rejected the team's claims that they were underpaid in comparison to the Men's National Team.

We hear from one former player and the team's lawyers about what comes next in their fight.

>> The shot.

Save, Scurry!

>> My name is Briana Scurry.

I was a goalkeeper for Team USA for 14 years.

I played in two Olympic Games, in '96 and 2004.

Both those times when I was playing, we won golds.

It's 25 years that I have been in the battle with U.S. Soccer and my teammates from from the years past, and so now it's to a point where it had to go to court, because there's really nowhere else for it to go.

>> The district-court judge dismissed the case because the women, over five years, actually earned slightly more than the men.

But the only way the women earn slightly more is because they played many more games and they won many more games.

And we are going to fight that and are fighting that with an appeal.

>> If men and women are doing, substantially, the same job, you have to pay them the same.

You can't make the women's bonuses lower and just say they have to do an extra good job to make up the same amount of money as the men.

>> The U.S. Soccer Federation has always said, "Well, the standard for the women is to win," and to which we always say, "Well, so what's your standard for the men?

To lose?"

Now, if the men were three-time, four-time World Cup champion and four-time Olympic champion, I mean, the fees that they would demand would be astronomical, you know, multiple times of what we're asking for.

And, yet, here we are with this discrepancy in pay.

>> The only way they can come close to making what the men made over a period of time, over a little more, was by performing so much better.

They had to be the best in the world.

The women won the World Cup.

Had the women played under the men's deal, they would have collectively made $64 million, approximately, more.

>> You can say, on one hand, that you love the marketing dollars and the fact that you have people like Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe, who have millions and millions of social-media followers, who have influence, who are on the cover of Time magazine, you know, and there's no one from the men's side anywhere close to that.

>> USSF argue that because women could not play biologically the same as men, that the game of women's soccer was a less-challenging, less-demanding game, their responsibilities weren't same, and the quality of the product wasn't the same.

USSF withdrew that argument, legally, because the public reacted so badly to it.

>> I had a visceral reaction to U.S. Soccer literally stating that men were superior to women.

It's archaic.

It's so played out.

It's just -- It's insulting.

It truly is insulting, and especially in this case, because U.S. Soccer and soccer in this country has literally been pulled by the scruff of the neck to the mainstream by the women's team.

I mean, we are the darlings of soccer in this country, and no one else really can say any different.

The women should be making more, because we are clearly the dominant team in the sport in this case.

>> Goal!

[ Crowd cheering ] >> In a statement sent to "GZERO World," U.S. Soccer said they are committed to equal pay for their women's team.

A major sticking point, they say, is FIFA's prize structure for male and female World Cup winners.

2019, the women's team walked away with about $4 million in prize money for winning the World Cup.

In 2018, the male champions took home $38 million.

♪♪ And now to "Puppet Regime," where one Olympian's quest for the gold is going viral.

>> Welcome back to our ongoing coverage of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, where there is one participant whose performance has been highly anticipated.

Joining us now, it's the coronavirus.

>> [ Coughs ] >> Mr.

Virus, the anticipation around your presence here in Tokyo has been...contagious.

How do you feel?

>> Well, as you know, over the past year, since the Games were postponed, I've only gotten faster and stronger, a lot stronger.

>> Yes, you might even say that the delta between last year and this year has increased.

[ Laughs ] >> Oh, man!

Did you just actually make that joke on air?

>> Just following the science, sir.

Okay, what sports are you particularly excited about?

>> Well, obviously, I've prepared a lot for the 6-foot dash, which I cover in half the time now, as you probably know.

I'm also a perennial favorite at unwashed handball.

And I'm looking to make a huge leap in the vaccine pole vault.

Could be a real breakthrough event for me.

>> You know, a lot of people predicted that you would absolutely dominate this Olympics.

How does that affect you mentally?

>> Well, yeah, it's a lot of pressure, particularly with all the social media, where I'm a pretty big deal.

Sometimes, I feel like it's too much, you know?

But then I think of all those unvaccinated people I'm competing for, and it helps me power through.

>> Right.

Now, let me ask you this.

Have your fellow competitors been welcoming to you or have -- >> Oh, please!

They couldn't care less, man.

Seriously, do you know how much sex goes on in the Olympic Village?

I wouldn't touch those bedsheets with a 10-foot protein spike.

>> That's our show this week.

Come back next week, and if you like what you see -- of course you do -- if you want to go for the gold on "GZERO," check us out at gzeromedia.com.

♪♪ >> Major corporate funding provided by founding sponsor First Republic.

At First Republic, our clients come first.

Taking the time to listen helps us provide customized banking and wealth-management solutions.

More on our clients at firstrepublic.com.

Additional funding provided by... and by....