The Olympics aren't just about sport. The Games are concentrates of stories--stories about athletes, to be sure, but stories about the countries the athletes represent, too, and about how those countries see themselves as part of, or apart from, in some case, the world community.
These days, that's especially true of the Middle East, whose 30-odd nations span the spectrum from the vibrantly progressive (the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman) to the authoritarian and regressive (Saudi Arabia, Egypt) to the war-torn and possibly mending (Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon) to the unpredictable (Turkey, Iran, Algeria).
This photo gallery highlights some of those stories.
Images 1-12 of 12
- Graphic Index
- Text Index