Olympic Dreams and Nightmares
The Chinese just put on what were likely the greatest Olympic games ever. Facilities that were out of this world enabled athletes to set a host of swimming and track records. The spectacle was immense, the stadium incredible, the ceremonies breathtaking. All of the very real issues the world has with China's government did little to detract from this. China wanted to show us that she was great, and the veneer was certainly one of greatness.
Yet I found much of it annoying. I used to love the Olympics, and a big part of me still does. Hell, I love most of the essence of it all. I went to the 1996 Atlanta games and, even though I was almost blown up, I loved the feeling in the air of friendship, camaraderie and tolerance. For me, as a foreigner still very new to the US, I loved how excited people were that I was there and how very much more interested they where in knowing about my home country, than had been my experience up till then. Little did they know I'd driven up from just three hours away, from Columbia South Carolina. Crowded streets were filled with smiles, and a far greater diversity of accents, appearances and even hawkers. It was a magical experience for me. If you ever get the chance to go to an Olympic games, don't miss it. You will not be sorry, whether you are interested in sports or not.
But few get to experience that side of the games. For most of us what we see is what's on TV... and that's the heart of the problem - who controls what we see? When I lived in South Africa those of us who loved the sports and the friendship were able to bulk up on it during the games. This was in large part due to us having limited South African medal-winner hopes, so fewer opportunities for excessive jingoism and national angst. My guess would be that every country in the world goes overboard on this, but my guess would also be that few can match the nationalism on display on the US's NBC. It certainly exceeds what I recall going on about our few winners, when I was still in South Africa, and I recall being annoyed by even that much. It's an unfair comparison, but it's the only one I have.
Quite simply there is far too much nationalism at the games. National pride is one thing, but jingoism is another. It's all about the countries and how many medals each country has won, with every nation counting them in the way that suits them best. I notice, for example, that the British counted the medal winner order by most gold medals won, as that is how they ranked the highest this year, whereas the US had to count the medal rankings by number of total medals to achieve the same, because China had the most gold medals by a huge margin. We all know how the Chinese will have counted the pecking order.
On the rare occasions I care much about it, I tend to side with the "count the gold medals" school, or maybe a points system (3 for gold, 2 for silver, 1 for bronze), either one of which would put China top. But then China have 1.4 billion people and the US 300 million... and do we want to go there? The truth is medal ranking is another long and complex article all its own. For example Australia have a population of only 20 million and were 5th in medals and 6th in golds, so if you count medals by population then maybe they win... or no, maybe it's Iceland, who won a single silver medal, but only have a population of 300,000. And if it's that complex, does it not highlight how stupid it is to count medals by nations?
Mostly though, who gives a damn? I mean, isn't the point supposed to have something to do with the achievements of individuals and the brotherhood of womankind, or some such? I mean just why the hell is it all about representing your country anyway? Isn't it about proving you are the best in the world (as much as that is possible), as an individual athlete? And about giving up our hatreds and prejudices for a while, and learning that our opponents have so very much in common with us. Isn't it supposed to be about friendly contests and good sportsmanship? I'd like to think so, though I'm not that naïve and I am a huge fan of the whole concept of sports instead of war. But I can hope that for once humanity can do a better job of living up to their highest ideals, instead of this steady decline.
It certainly is hard to realize the Olympic ideals when watching NBC's coverage, and one might mistake the event as merely a massive vehicle for corporate sponsorships. In fact the only thing that outdoes the nationalism is the commercialism. At times the advertising had more air time than the sports, regularly stooping to the old approach of showing a ton of ads, then announcing what was coming up next, and then showing a bunch more ads. I do have a deep revulsion for all this. Yes, I know that a games as elaborate as all this is only possible because of sponsorship, yadda yadda yadda, what a crock. There are other ways to do things than selling our collective souls.
If you cut out the adverts, the national anthems, and NBC's endless stream of sob stories about how athletes had to walk blindfolded for thousands of miles in the snow, under enemy fire, uphill both ways, without a packed lunch, just to get to the minefield they used for a practice field... why you'd have so much time left over that you could show about three or four times more of the actual Olympics. (Okay, okay, so I'll admit to liking the ocasional stirring story, when its not overdone.)
Even when we get away from all of this and reduce it to individuals, the games again come up short. Human nature is all too fallible. Given half a chance many athletes cheat. Some get caught, but, as we have seen recently with many admissions/busts coming many years later, a substantial number of cheats never get caught. In fact it often seems like most do not. This year there were a number of drug busts by national federations before the games, and a small number of cheats were busted at the games... and in some cases it was their horses that they were drugging. And a cheat is very likely always been a cheat, and probably is always going to be a cheat, so all of their past and future achievements should be in doubt.
Ukrainian heptathlete Liudmyla Blonska is a great example. She was busted this year after serving a prior two-year doping ban in 2003. Since then rivals have said she was still cheating, but she was never busted. That she could be a known cheat, but not busted again in all this time encapsulates the entire problem. Everything she's won since then should be stripped from her, yet often it is not. You have to be busted for it to count. Not to mention the changes the drugs made to her body, in terms of gained muscle mass and the like. No wonder some sports federations punish cheats with lifetime bans (though far too few really). Quite a number of athletes winning medals at these games have shady pasts in this area, and that is just plain wrong.
It's interesting to see, in all the endless discussions about whether Michael Phelps was a greater Olympian than Carl Lewis or others, that only in non-US media did one see mention of Lewis' own past history, where he was found innocent following a positive test (they agreed he'd done it by accident), at a time when most who were busted were given the benefit of the doubt. In fact one athlete busted in that era claimed that his notification of a positive drug test was accompanied by an assurance that it would be overturned as accidental. I certainly would rate Phelps higher for this reason alone, but also for reasons of sportsmanship.
This sort of national tolerance for cheating is not unusual, in fact many have done far worse. Some nations have taken it to a whole new level, usually because of nationalism and an overwhelming desire to appear to be superior to other nations. The most famous is arguably the whole East German fiasco back in the day, when they jacked the whole team up on steroids, apparently unbeknown to the athletes, resulting in a woman's swimming team that won almost everything, but looked like a men's swimming team. As is always the case, the nationalists don't care about the personal cost to the health and wellbeing of their athletes.
Also forgotten in all this, and partially tainted by it all, are the many athletes who never cheat, who honor good sportsmanship, who epitomize the best of the games. Grumpy articles like mine must try to avoid tainting them too. And yet... it goes on.
This year there was a strong suggestion that the Chinese cheated at gymnastics by fielding underage gymnasts. This is a recurring theme in gymnastics ever since they set the age limit (first to 15 and later to 16) in order to protect younger competitors, who were pushed so hard that it affected their mental and physical development. Cheating here is common because younger gymnasts do well. Arguably the greatest gymnast was Nadia Comanechi, who won her first gold at the age of 14 (before the age limits). However, this is almost impossible to police, since the IOC has to believe a nation who get to show their own documentation to prove their athletes' ages. Self-policing rarely works. China have cheated on this rule before, per the admission of one of their former gymnasts, and certainly one would be inclined to take that information and suspect that the same has happened again.
The imperfections of the games do not stop there. The games are dominated by the West, in terms of the sports on offer and the host nations. Of the 49 cities that have or will host an Olympic games (winter and summer), 42 are located in either Europe or North America. Bids from South America and Africa have never won. So the 5 continents are all invited to a games stacked with sports with Western roots, but most of their countries will never host the games or even have the resources to adequately compete. Again, the evidence is that it's all about the money. Who can afford to host the games is part of it, but also who will generate the most revenue for advertisers, television, etc. The core decisions are business decisions that have nothing to do with the Olympic ideals.
Let's not forget the corruption. Salt Lake were busted for bribes that won them the right to host the games, and we have no idea how much of this really took place before then, though the signs are that is was (and probably still is) standard operating procedure. In fact the suggestion is that Salt Lake were beaten by Nagano in an earlier bid, despite having a much stronger bid, because they did not pay bribes, so next time up they played the game as it seemed the were required to... and were busted. Since that time the French accused the British of the same, when London beat out Paris to become the next host of the games, so it's likely not over yet.
Also on the money scale, wealthier nations, or nations willing to spend their resources on sports, always win more medals. It's hard to compete at swimming if your country has few/none Olympic swimming pools. It's hard to excel when your coaching and competition infrastructure can't match wealthier nations. I heard several comments by Americans that the Chinese had bought all their medals, and none of them realized just how much of their own medal count comes from copious amounts of money spent on athletes and a sporting infrastructure right here.
Certainly the Chinese have taken it to another level entirely, doing something akin to the old Soviet block countries, and their system is largely closed to the rest of the world. The US (and the West) are far better because they are more open. The infrastructure is based in colleges and sporting bodies that are constantly looking for an edge and often go to other countries in search of athletes that will make their programs shine. As a result many nations had medalists that trained in wealthier countries, but it did seem like the bulk of them had come through some college program or another right here in the US. But they are not the rule, they are the lucky ones. In general, to reach their full potential, athletes need to be able to make a living at sports, something only possible in wealthier nations. But before that the sporting infrastructure, from school on up, has to be in place to get them to that point. Countries struggling to feed their people will mostly not be building stadiums.
Also muddying all these waters are the number of athletes who change nationality in order to get better access to facilities, or a wealthier homeland, a better chance to compete, or what have you. Most of this is the movement of athletes and experts from poorer nations to richer ones. The US gymnastics team has become a dominant force after pulling in coaches from more successful gymnastic nations. This year their coaching staff included representatives from China, Russia and Romania. China brought in coaches from all over the world to train their athletes in many different disciplines. There were also many athletes who changed nationalities because of limits on the numbers of competitors in their own country, so they moved to a country where they were much more likely to make the team.
Is this not enough? For this piece, yes, though the fallibility of the IOC itself is source material for another article. Aside from the corruption and the other issues mentioned above, they do not seem to be very open, and Honorary President for Life Juan Antonio Samaranch certainly resembled a dictator in many pundits' book. They do not appear to equally represent all nations, not by a long shot. Their corruption goes further than bribes too.
The Olympic Games remain a great concept and a marvelous human gathering. I'm still greatly enamored by the heart of it all. It's a pity that those involved are all too often so unworthy. The Olympics have brought us many great stories and I'd prefer to finish this little piece focusing on the uplifting and the inspiring aspects of the games. These are some that I liked from these games, and some notable ones:
Next up, Vancouver for the Winter games and then back to London in 2012. Oh the agony, oh the ecstasy. Oh the anthems, oh the achievements. Oh the endless adverts, oh the awesome stories. Oh the scandals, oh the great sportsmanship. Ah hell, I'll still watch.
Yet I found much of it annoying. I used to love the Olympics, and a big part of me still does. Hell, I love most of the essence of it all. I went to the 1996 Atlanta games and, even though I was almost blown up, I loved the feeling in the air of friendship, camaraderie and tolerance. For me, as a foreigner still very new to the US, I loved how excited people were that I was there and how very much more interested they where in knowing about my home country, than had been my experience up till then. Little did they know I'd driven up from just three hours away, from Columbia South Carolina. Crowded streets were filled with smiles, and a far greater diversity of accents, appearances and even hawkers. It was a magical experience for me. If you ever get the chance to go to an Olympic games, don't miss it. You will not be sorry, whether you are interested in sports or not.
But few get to experience that side of the games. For most of us what we see is what's on TV... and that's the heart of the problem - who controls what we see? When I lived in South Africa those of us who loved the sports and the friendship were able to bulk up on it during the games. This was in large part due to us having limited South African medal-winner hopes, so fewer opportunities for excessive jingoism and national angst. My guess would be that every country in the world goes overboard on this, but my guess would also be that few can match the nationalism on display on the US's NBC. It certainly exceeds what I recall going on about our few winners, when I was still in South Africa, and I recall being annoyed by even that much. It's an unfair comparison, but it's the only one I have.
Quite simply there is far too much nationalism at the games. National pride is one thing, but jingoism is another. It's all about the countries and how many medals each country has won, with every nation counting them in the way that suits them best. I notice, for example, that the British counted the medal winner order by most gold medals won, as that is how they ranked the highest this year, whereas the US had to count the medal rankings by number of total medals to achieve the same, because China had the most gold medals by a huge margin. We all know how the Chinese will have counted the pecking order.
On the rare occasions I care much about it, I tend to side with the "count the gold medals" school, or maybe a points system (3 for gold, 2 for silver, 1 for bronze), either one of which would put China top. But then China have 1.4 billion people and the US 300 million... and do we want to go there? The truth is medal ranking is another long and complex article all its own. For example Australia have a population of only 20 million and were 5th in medals and 6th in golds, so if you count medals by population then maybe they win... or no, maybe it's Iceland, who won a single silver medal, but only have a population of 300,000. And if it's that complex, does it not highlight how stupid it is to count medals by nations?
Mostly though, who gives a damn? I mean, isn't the point supposed to have something to do with the achievements of individuals and the brotherhood of womankind, or some such? I mean just why the hell is it all about representing your country anyway? Isn't it about proving you are the best in the world (as much as that is possible), as an individual athlete? And about giving up our hatreds and prejudices for a while, and learning that our opponents have so very much in common with us. Isn't it supposed to be about friendly contests and good sportsmanship? I'd like to think so, though I'm not that naïve and I am a huge fan of the whole concept of sports instead of war. But I can hope that for once humanity can do a better job of living up to their highest ideals, instead of this steady decline.
It certainly is hard to realize the Olympic ideals when watching NBC's coverage, and one might mistake the event as merely a massive vehicle for corporate sponsorships. In fact the only thing that outdoes the nationalism is the commercialism. At times the advertising had more air time than the sports, regularly stooping to the old approach of showing a ton of ads, then announcing what was coming up next, and then showing a bunch more ads. I do have a deep revulsion for all this. Yes, I know that a games as elaborate as all this is only possible because of sponsorship, yadda yadda yadda, what a crock. There are other ways to do things than selling our collective souls.
If you cut out the adverts, the national anthems, and NBC's endless stream of sob stories about how athletes had to walk blindfolded for thousands of miles in the snow, under enemy fire, uphill both ways, without a packed lunch, just to get to the minefield they used for a practice field... why you'd have so much time left over that you could show about three or four times more of the actual Olympics. (Okay, okay, so I'll admit to liking the ocasional stirring story, when its not overdone.)
Even when we get away from all of this and reduce it to individuals, the games again come up short. Human nature is all too fallible. Given half a chance many athletes cheat. Some get caught, but, as we have seen recently with many admissions/busts coming many years later, a substantial number of cheats never get caught. In fact it often seems like most do not. This year there were a number of drug busts by national federations before the games, and a small number of cheats were busted at the games... and in some cases it was their horses that they were drugging. And a cheat is very likely always been a cheat, and probably is always going to be a cheat, so all of their past and future achievements should be in doubt.
Ukrainian heptathlete Liudmyla Blonska is a great example. She was busted this year after serving a prior two-year doping ban in 2003. Since then rivals have said she was still cheating, but she was never busted. That she could be a known cheat, but not busted again in all this time encapsulates the entire problem. Everything she's won since then should be stripped from her, yet often it is not. You have to be busted for it to count. Not to mention the changes the drugs made to her body, in terms of gained muscle mass and the like. No wonder some sports federations punish cheats with lifetime bans (though far too few really). Quite a number of athletes winning medals at these games have shady pasts in this area, and that is just plain wrong.
It's interesting to see, in all the endless discussions about whether Michael Phelps was a greater Olympian than Carl Lewis or others, that only in non-US media did one see mention of Lewis' own past history, where he was found innocent following a positive test (they agreed he'd done it by accident), at a time when most who were busted were given the benefit of the doubt. In fact one athlete busted in that era claimed that his notification of a positive drug test was accompanied by an assurance that it would be overturned as accidental. I certainly would rate Phelps higher for this reason alone, but also for reasons of sportsmanship.
This sort of national tolerance for cheating is not unusual, in fact many have done far worse. Some nations have taken it to a whole new level, usually because of nationalism and an overwhelming desire to appear to be superior to other nations. The most famous is arguably the whole East German fiasco back in the day, when they jacked the whole team up on steroids, apparently unbeknown to the athletes, resulting in a woman's swimming team that won almost everything, but looked like a men's swimming team. As is always the case, the nationalists don't care about the personal cost to the health and wellbeing of their athletes.
Also forgotten in all this, and partially tainted by it all, are the many athletes who never cheat, who honor good sportsmanship, who epitomize the best of the games. Grumpy articles like mine must try to avoid tainting them too. And yet... it goes on.
This year there was a strong suggestion that the Chinese cheated at gymnastics by fielding underage gymnasts. This is a recurring theme in gymnastics ever since they set the age limit (first to 15 and later to 16) in order to protect younger competitors, who were pushed so hard that it affected their mental and physical development. Cheating here is common because younger gymnasts do well. Arguably the greatest gymnast was Nadia Comanechi, who won her first gold at the age of 14 (before the age limits). However, this is almost impossible to police, since the IOC has to believe a nation who get to show their own documentation to prove their athletes' ages. Self-policing rarely works. China have cheated on this rule before, per the admission of one of their former gymnasts, and certainly one would be inclined to take that information and suspect that the same has happened again.
The imperfections of the games do not stop there. The games are dominated by the West, in terms of the sports on offer and the host nations. Of the 49 cities that have or will host an Olympic games (winter and summer), 42 are located in either Europe or North America. Bids from South America and Africa have never won. So the 5 continents are all invited to a games stacked with sports with Western roots, but most of their countries will never host the games or even have the resources to adequately compete. Again, the evidence is that it's all about the money. Who can afford to host the games is part of it, but also who will generate the most revenue for advertisers, television, etc. The core decisions are business decisions that have nothing to do with the Olympic ideals.
Let's not forget the corruption. Salt Lake were busted for bribes that won them the right to host the games, and we have no idea how much of this really took place before then, though the signs are that is was (and probably still is) standard operating procedure. In fact the suggestion is that Salt Lake were beaten by Nagano in an earlier bid, despite having a much stronger bid, because they did not pay bribes, so next time up they played the game as it seemed the were required to... and were busted. Since that time the French accused the British of the same, when London beat out Paris to become the next host of the games, so it's likely not over yet.
Also on the money scale, wealthier nations, or nations willing to spend their resources on sports, always win more medals. It's hard to compete at swimming if your country has few/none Olympic swimming pools. It's hard to excel when your coaching and competition infrastructure can't match wealthier nations. I heard several comments by Americans that the Chinese had bought all their medals, and none of them realized just how much of their own medal count comes from copious amounts of money spent on athletes and a sporting infrastructure right here.
Certainly the Chinese have taken it to another level entirely, doing something akin to the old Soviet block countries, and their system is largely closed to the rest of the world. The US (and the West) are far better because they are more open. The infrastructure is based in colleges and sporting bodies that are constantly looking for an edge and often go to other countries in search of athletes that will make their programs shine. As a result many nations had medalists that trained in wealthier countries, but it did seem like the bulk of them had come through some college program or another right here in the US. But they are not the rule, they are the lucky ones. In general, to reach their full potential, athletes need to be able to make a living at sports, something only possible in wealthier nations. But before that the sporting infrastructure, from school on up, has to be in place to get them to that point. Countries struggling to feed their people will mostly not be building stadiums.
Also muddying all these waters are the number of athletes who change nationality in order to get better access to facilities, or a wealthier homeland, a better chance to compete, or what have you. Most of this is the movement of athletes and experts from poorer nations to richer ones. The US gymnastics team has become a dominant force after pulling in coaches from more successful gymnastic nations. This year their coaching staff included representatives from China, Russia and Romania. China brought in coaches from all over the world to train their athletes in many different disciplines. There were also many athletes who changed nationalities because of limits on the numbers of competitors in their own country, so they moved to a country where they were much more likely to make the team.
Is this not enough? For this piece, yes, though the fallibility of the IOC itself is source material for another article. Aside from the corruption and the other issues mentioned above, they do not seem to be very open, and Honorary President for Life Juan Antonio Samaranch certainly resembled a dictator in many pundits' book. They do not appear to equally represent all nations, not by a long shot. Their corruption goes further than bribes too.
The Olympic Games remain a great concept and a marvelous human gathering. I'm still greatly enamored by the heart of it all. It's a pity that those involved are all too often so unworthy. The Olympics have brought us many great stories and I'd prefer to finish this little piece focusing on the uplifting and the inspiring aspects of the games. These are some that I liked from these games, and some notable ones:
- The joy a single handball silver medal brought to tiny Iceland, an event so huge for them that the whole country got the day off to watch the semifinal, and went crazy after their team's win.
- Diver Matthew Mitcham winning a gold medal by registering four perfect 10s and a 9.5 for a total of 112.10 on his final dive, coming back from miles behind.
- Sally McLellan somehow getting silver in the 100M hurdles and her explosion of unadulterated joy. Her honesty (and momentary bewilderment) in her post-race interview is like nothing else you've ever seen. In fact all three medalists in that race all showed joy and surprise. It was a delight so unlike some of the arrogance on display elsewhere.
- The reaction of German super-heavyweight weightlifter Matthias Steiner after he lifted the winning weight, later shedding tears for his wife, who was killed in a car accident last year. He then took her picture with him onto the medal podium.
- 24-year-old South African Natalie du Toit finished 16th in the grueling 10-km open water race... with only one leg. She became the first female amputee to compete in the Olympics. Amazingly she was a contender, having come 5th in the world championships, but without that second leg it's hit or miss for her.
- After a Danish sailing team's mast had broken just before their race, the Croatian sailing team loaned them their boat to allow the Danes to contend for and win the gold medal.
- When swimmer Dara Torres noticed that a competitor had ripped her suit, she held up the start of the race until the wardrobe malfunction could be corrected.
- A Russian and a Georgian sharing the medal stand embraced as their countries battled in a real war.
- In gymnastics, amidst all the teenagers and the allegations of underage Chinese athletes, came Oksana Chusovitina. This 33-year-old mother (of a 9-year-old) managed to win the silver medal in the vault. She'd won her first Olympic medal before some of her competitors were born.
- Usain bolt is just way too aptly named for a sprinter. He won the Olympic centerpiece event, the men's 100m sprint and the title World's Fastest Man generally associated with it. He also won the 200m and the 100m relay with team Jamaica, and set world records in all three events. All amazing, but it's the 200m that amazed me. Michael Johnson's previous world record was supposed to stand for a lifetime. You never can tell with these things.
- You know how it is when you hear a song and you think it's cool, but then it gets played to death and you come to hate it? It was kinda like that with Michael Phelps. On and on they went about it at the last Olympics, and again this time. Swimming, more than most Olympic sports, allows a talented athlete to win more medals than in other arenas of the games. A Javelin thrower can win but one event, a sprinter but 3 or 4, but a swimmer can win a bunch. It's the only area of the games where such a record can realistically be set. Once he achieved the 8 gold medals they just kept on harping on and on about it. So it was cool and all, but I really hate that tune now. I wanted to see more of the rest of the games and less repetition.
Next up, Vancouver for the Winter games and then back to London in 2012. Oh the agony, oh the ecstasy. Oh the anthems, oh the achievements. Oh the endless adverts, oh the awesome stories. Oh the scandals, oh the great sportsmanship. Ah hell, I'll still watch.