Why Team USA won't dip their flag at the Olympics Opening Ceremony
The US has broken with tradition since 1908.
As the most prolific medal-winning nation in history, it’s fair to say that the US has a good standing at the Olympics 2020.
Team USA has competed at every single modern Olympics with the exception of 1980, winning over 2,800 medals at the summer and winter games and even hosted the event on eight occasions.
However, Team USA will not dip their flag at the Tokyo Olympics 2020 – and it will hardly be the first time.
The US has long been the only country that refuses to dip its flag during the parade of nations in the Olympics opening ceremony, a sign of respect to the governing officials of the host nation.
The tradition dates back to 1908, when US flag bearer and shotputter Ralph Rose kept the flag high during the opening ceremony in London, supposedly proclaiming: "This flag dips to no earthly king.”
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However, Penn State professor Mark Dyreson told the LA Times that the matter was somewhat more complicated – and that there was no evidence Rose uttered that famous phrase at all.
However, there is evidence to suggest why Rose refused to dip the flag, and it’s another example of the Olympics' entanglement with international politics.
The most likely scenario is that Irish-American Rose refused to perform this gesture of respect to the English monarch given the tensions between the two countries at the time. Constitutional and occasionally violent campaigns for Irish autonomy were on the rise - building up to the island's partition and independent status in 1921 - and several Irish-American athletes riled at competing under the Union Jack.
The move was criticised at the time as a sign of “ugly Americanism”, but Dyreson adds that the break with tradition has since become “a folk tale, a nice romantic mythology”.
It did not catch on straight away, as the 1912 Stockholm Olympics saw a return to dipping, with the practice yo-yoing between dipping and not dipping depending on the wishes of the flag bearer – until 1936.
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The 1936 Olympics were of course held in Berlin, where the US very nearly did not participate. The country did compete in the end, and were not about to dip a flag in respect to Adolf Hitler – but this time the order came from the US Olympic Committee themselves, becoming official policy for the first time that was announced in advance. The US were not alone this time though – reports show Bulgaria, Iceland and Bulgaria joined in this act of protest.
The tradition was then codified in the 1940s – in a quote we can guarantee, the US Flag Code now reads that “the flag should not be dipped to any person or thing” and the national symbol has not been dipped at the Olympics since.
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