From Voices to Silence: A Comparative Analysis of Athlete Activism at Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024

Abstract

This study examines why Team USA athletes who had been publicly engaged in activism at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games largely refrained from protest at Paris 2024. Drawing on Sidney Tarrow's framework of contentious politics, it analyses political opportunities, networks, framing, and institutional environments to explain shifting patterns of athlete expression. Using a comparative qualitative design, the study synthesizes media statements, institutional documents, and policy communications from 2020–2024 to trace changes in the political and organizational context. Findings show that the decline of activism was not driven by new repression or formal rule changes but by the erosion of public legitimacy, institutional support, and collective framing infrastructures that once legitimized protest. The analysis extends Tarrow's framework by showing how athlete activism unfolds as institutionally embedded contention, shaped less by formal access to power than by the symbolic permission and elite endorsement that determine when expression is tolerated. The study concludes that athlete activism rises and falls with the institutional and cultural environments that make dissent possible.