hanging from my own rope
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this bjturk.commentary: As I write this, the Games of the XXVI Olympiad are half over. Much has been made of Kerry Strug's monumental effort to make that second vault to give the U.S. Women's Gymnastics Team its first-ever gold medal in Olympic competition. What people fail to recognize is that, while her effort was no doubt under tremendous stress, both physical and emotional, it did not represent the true spirit of the games. My thoughts on the true spirit of the games go well beyond mere individual performance and winning medals. How many of you have heard of the tiny, poor island nation of Comoros? Probably not many. Yet their track team was touched by the true Olympic spirit. Comoros, off the east coast of Africa, sent athletes as much out of pride than anything else. What the USOC and the U.S. Swimming Team will pay a swimmer for an individual gold medal ($25,000 each) would feed dozens on Comoros for a month. They are so poor that the best equivalent I can imagine is to mortgage your house for a single vacation on which you would spend all of the money.
The Comoros track team felt the Olympic spirit in the form of an assistant coach (whose name I do not have) at the Georgia college at which they trained during the games. This American coach saw the dismal condition of the running shoes the Comoros team was wearing. Asking nothing in return, he took all six members of the Comoros team to a local store and bought them new shoes with his own money. That is the Olympic Spirit in action. I defy anyone to prove to me that his action was any less heroic than that of Strug. Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against Strug, and I felt the same pride as any American when she endured unimaginable (for me) pain in attempting that last vault. Under the circumstances, her effort was near-superhuman in magnitude. My problem is that people forget that the spirit of the Olympics is harmony, cooperation, and mutual respect and concern. In the past, athletes have been known to carry other athletes across the finish line, abandon races to help others, and give of themselves for the sake of another, regardless of their flag. This is what the Olympics are all about.
On a related issue, I am sick and tired of the Olympic double standard. In certain sports, you can be a professional, but in others, you must be an amateur. This is patently unfair. I see no reason why, for example, professional gymnasts cannot compete but professional ice skaters can. For that matter, why is the U.S. not allowed to pack its baseball team with Major Leaguers when it does so with the basketball Dream Team? Further, why does the USOC get to pay swimmers tens of thousands of dollars for the gold and silver medals they win? For heaven's sake, even the gold and silver medalists in Beach Volleyball this year were professionals! That's right: beach volleyball. Allow me to clearly state without question that if the Olympics are to be a showcase of the finest athletes in the world, then open them up to all professionals and amateurs alike. If the Games are to be the best in amateur athletics, then make it so completely. The time has come for the International Olympic Committee to take a stand: either allow all professionals to compete or exclude them all. I vote to return the Olympics to amateur athletes across the board, with no exceptions and no grandfathering. The integrity of the Games is at stake, in my view. Call me a purist, but I can't think of a single good reason to allow professional athletes to get an ego boost to go along with their millions by allowing them into the Olympics as anything but a spectator. I would like to see the IOC return the world's greatest athletic competition to the amateur athletes. Those who will reap commercial success from their Olympic success may still do so after the Games, but will lose their eligibility to compete in the Olympics ever again. If the IOC won't do this, then the IOC should return every medal stripped from every athlete who had them taken away for having played at a professional level, such as what happened to Jim Thorpe. Stop the hypocrisy!
* * * * * CORRECTION * * * * * In the last paragraph above, I noted that the IOC should return Jim Thorpe's medals as a result of their hypocrisy regarding professional athletes in the Games. I confess that I skimped on my research. Let me present a more complete, and more historically accurate, story. Jim Thorpe won two gold medals (pentathlon and decathlon, both rather handily) during the 1912 Games in Stockholm. Thorpe returned home an Olympic hero. After the Games, it was determined that he had received money for playing minor-league baseball, which was a violation of Olympic eligibility rules. As a result, his medals were taken away and his AAU and Olympic records were dropped. Thorpe spent the rest of his life trying to get them back. A widespread effort to return Jim Thorpe to the Olympic record book began in 1943. Thirty-nine years later, in October 1982, Thorpe's Olympic records were reinstated, and in January 1983, the International Olympic Committee presented replicas of Thorpe's two gold medals to each of Thorpe's children. In January 2000, the USOC and the Native American Sports Council presented "A Tribute to Jim Thorpe" in Colorado Springs. Thorpe had been welcomed back into the Olympic fold. Too little, too late, in my opinion. Jim Thorpe died in March 1953 with his quest for the return of his medals unfulfilled. July 29, 1996
You'll always be broke if people don't pay you attention!
copyright © 1994-2010 bjturk.communications. all rights reserved. |
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