by Liz Holbrook
There is no more anticipated major sporting event in the world than the biannual Olympic Games. The 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, China have been highly anticipated since the conclusion of the PyeongChang Olympics in 2018. In an international event that includes countries from around the world and sports of all types, one sport has faced more scandal than others. Olympic figure skating is a sport that combines technical prowess with graceful artistry,, all while being on what one could call knife shoes in skates. However, it is also the Olympic sport that seems to draw the most controversy, including at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. This year, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) faced major scrutiny regarding the status of athletes who take performance enhancing drugs to compete in competitions. Here’s why this issue at the Winter Olympics over the past two weeks has been an example to public relations professionals about how to handle sports crisis communications. What is the Scandal? If you don’t keep up with the Winter Olympics or have not seen it come across your social media feeds, here’s a quick primer on what happened with figure skating at the Beijing Olympics that has caused so much controversy. Figure skating at the Winter Olympics is broken down into a few categories in competition. There are the gender based categories, the two categories for pair skaters in pairs and rhythm dance, and then the team competition that combines all the categories together. The team competition occurs first at the Olympics. In the team competition, each country selects skaters from its figure skating team to represent them in different categories. Those categories include the men’s short program, the women’s short program, rhythm dance, pairs, the men’s free program, and the women’s free program. During the team competition, the 10 best figure skating countries in the world compete, including the United States, Japan, China, Canada, and the ROC (Russian Olympic Committee). The ROC is a unique Olympic body, as it is for Russian athletes, but they do not represent the country of Russia. This is due to a 2017 ruling from the IOC regarding Russian athletes that were found to be taking performance enhancing drugs for the 2016 Summer Olympics and barred the country from competing in further Olympics. Russian athletes instead were to compete for the ROC starting in 2018 as well as for these Olympics. However, 2016 wouldn’t be the only year that ROC athletes were found to be using performance enhancing drugs while competing in the Olympics. Shortly after Russian skater Kamila Valieva competed for Russia in the team event where Russia captured the gold medal, it was found that she had tested positive for a banned substance that enhances athletic performance and endurance. The positive test from the 15-year-old immediately sparked controversy as many called for the ROC’s and Valieva’s removal from the competition. What Does This Have to Do with PR? As public relations students and soon to be professionals, it is always good to look at crisis communications incidents and see where the response to that event works and where it doesn’t. The Winter Olympics figure skating scandal is an excellent example of an international sized moment of crisis communication that can inform smaller crisis communication incidents. In looking at how the IOC handled Valieva’s positive test, we can see some things they did right as well as some things they did wrong. In the days after Valieva’s positive test was discovered, she was given a provisional suspension from competing and many were unsure how medals for the team event would be rewarded. After four days, the IOC, the International Skating Union, and the Court of Arbitration for Sport decided to remove Valieva’s suspension and let her compete in the women’s single events on the condition that if she medaled, no medal ceremony would take place for any participants. Many in figure skating and the media were upset with the decision as they claimed it unfairly punished athletes from other countries and let the ROC off the hook for their dubious practices. Despite uproar over the decision, the Olympic bodies that decided Valieva’s fate stuck to their decision saying that suspending Valieva would cause her “irreparable harm,” but did not elaborate on the investigation into her positive test. In this case, the one thing that the governing bodies did right was communicating their position clearly and in a timely manner. The decision about Valieva was made a little more than a day before the women’s portion of the figure skating competition when the bodies released a clear and concise statement about her standing in the competition. Where the governing bodies didn’t follow good crisis communication practices is how they responded to the backlash of their decision. In statements from IOC and figure skating officials, you can tell that they are defensive about the questions surrounding the decision. Communication from the governing bodies also lacked transparency regarding the investigation. While the communication did include their reasoning for removing the suspension, it did not say how the bodies are handling the investigation going forward outside of the medal ceremony situation. In my eyes, the worst practice that the Olympic governing bodies failed to follow was in using practices that kept their athletes safe. If you watched the end of the women’s program on February 17th, you saw the other two ROC skaters in pain and mental anguish at only 17 years old despite placing first and second in the competition. Valieva is even younger than them, at 15 years old, and struggled throughout her routine. This was likely due to her being under so much scrutiny and media attention. The ROC skaters are coached by a woman that has had numerous allegations brought against her for how poorly she treats her young athletes, which could also be seen during the free skate on the 17th. Neither skater was comforted in their times of need, but instead left to themselves while their coaches harshly critiqued their top five performances. By not sanctioning the ROC, the Olympic bodies gave a signal that they were okay with these types of coaching practices. What to Learn on the International State Overall, when you look at the public relations response to Valieva’s positive substance tests, it's not hard to see the poor ethical practices of the Olympic governing bodies. It is an interesting case study to analyze as a public relations student because so much information is available and because it is occuring in front of such a wide audience. While we likely won't have to deal with a crisis communications public relations incident this large, there are still many things you can learn from an Olympic sized scandal. Are there any PR practices that occurred during this situation that I overlooked in my analysis? Let me know in the comments down below or how you would handle a sports public relations crisis
0 Comments
by Lakota Lackey
“What is PRSSA?” “Why should I join?” “How will it help me?” “What do they offer?” “Is it worth my time?” “Is it fun?” “Is it an acronym or is it pronounced PURSE-uh?” In this post, I’m going to answer all of those questions and more (it is an acronym by the way). In May of 2021, I received an email informing me that I was accepted for the role of Vice President of Member Services for the University of Northern Iowa’s Public Relations Student Society of America chapter. Or, more simply, VP of Member Services for UNI PRSSA. After being involved with the student organization for a little over a year, I was ecstatic to be able to serve on the executive board! I eagerly anticipated the team I would be a part of and the duties I would fulfill in the coming school year. What I didn’t realize at the time was how little I actually knew and how much I needed to learn in order to faithfully serve our members. In the summer leading up to the fall semester, I did my research and can now confidently share all that PRSSA has to offer. There are so many opportunities offered by PRSSA, but I am going to highlight and explain the benefits I feel are most important to maximizing your potential. General Member Benefits Our general member meetings offer the opportunity to connect with real industry professionals who speak on their experience in the industry and give insight on how to succeed after college. Attending meetings regularly is one of the greatest ways to grow as a pre-professional. For one of our members in the fall 2021 semester, attending a meeting and asking one question allowed him to connect with a speaker and be offered a job interview. This goes to show how simply being involved could lead you to your future career! General member meetings are something that we as an executive board plan for our members, but before expanding on what benefits our chapter offers, let me share a little about the benefits we receive from PRSSA National. PRSSA National Benefits PRSSA has many chapters on college campuses across the country, and a National Committee which oversees them all. One spectacular opportunity programmed by PRSSA are their annual international conference (ICON) and district conferences. ICON happens in the fall each year and is held in cities across the country, some notable places of the past being San Francisco, New York City, and Orlando. District conferences happen in the spring and are hosted by a PRSSA chapter within our Midwest District. This year’s Midwest District conference is hosted by DePaul University in Chicago, but has been moved virtually due to the pandemic. Both conferences are amazing opportunities to network with professionals and fellow students from across the country, learn from industry leaders through breakout sessions, and have fun with our chapter! There are also many hands-on and leadership opportunities to take advantage of. Similar to our Chapter’s blog (which I will expand on later), you can write for PRSSA’s national blog, PRogressions. Good writers are what every hiring manager in our industry wants to see, and this is a great way to develop and show off your skills! You can also make connections and gain experience by being involved with a national subcommittee: The Publications Committee assists with publications for PRSSA, the PRoud Council facilitates diversity and inclusion initiatives, and the Social Media Squad helps promote the voice and brand of PRSSA. A great way to gain leadership experience and expand your network is by becoming a District Ambassador. These student leaders act as a liaison between Chapters and the National Committee by helping Chapters within their district grow in membership and strengthen their offerings. UNI PRSSA Benefits Becoming a dues-paying UNI PRSSA member makes you eligible for an array of benefits: you receive a member gift every semester, you are granted access to our recorded Zoom meetings and our private Facebook group, and you have the opportunity to be featured on our website and social media. There are so many amazing opportunities offered by our chapter, and I want to touch on a few which I believe are most beneficial. The first opportunity I want to talk about is publishing. One way to have your work published is by writing for our blog, Setting PRecedents. As the person who oversees our blog, I will tell you that writing for Setting PRecedents is the greatest way to develop your writing skills! You can also write for our bi-annual newsletter, The PRogressor, and if you would like to share or develop your creative side, you can design for the newsletter as well. Graphic design is a skill that is growing in necessity within our industry, which makes this a great opportunity for growth. Next, I want to highlight our special events, some of which are our socials. These are held in place of general member meetings and happen randomly throughout the semester. They are a fun time to get together and grow closer as a Chapter. Another event put on by the executive board are our end-of-semester banquets. This is a time for us to celebrate the Chapter’s accomplishments, eat a fancy meal, and hand out member awards and prizes. My favorite event of every semester, however, are our agency tours. We plan a trip where we get to visit many different organizations we could one day be working for. In the past, we have toured Two Rivers Marketing, White Willow Events, and the Des Moines Buccaneers to name a few. Being able to envision my future, speak to professionals in their workplace, and have a blast with my fellow members has always been such a wonderful experience. Finally, I want to share about our leadership opportunities. As a member of the executive board, I can tell you that there is so much professional development that comes from serving our Chapter. All of our dues-paying members have the opportunity to apply for the executive board for the next academic year and sometimes for particular positions at the end of the fall semester. All of the benefits I described above are worked on by the executive board. Each position has different responsibilities, but we all help each other out. We program events, recruit members, create promotional content, plan our semester schedule, run meetings, and so much more. Serving on the executive board looks great on a resume and helps you to grow in more ways than I could put into a blog post. I highly encourage everyone to apply for a position for the coming academic year! Get Involved As you can see, PRSSA has a lot to offer. It’s up to you to take advantage of these opportunities to grow professionally. I guarantee you that if you do, you will be amazed at how much you can grow your potential and maximize the benefits that UNI PRSSA has to offer! Thanks for reading our blog! If you want to learn more about how you can get involved, feel free to leave a comment below! |