OPINION:
THE GAMES: A GLOBAL HISTORY OF THE OLYMPICS
By David Goldblatt
W.W. Norton & Company, $29.95, 464 pages
The Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil are nearly done. There have been many exciting moments, from swimmer Michael Phelps’ record-breaking medal count to Fiji’s first-ever medal, a gold, in the inaugural men’s rugby sevens tournament.
How will the first Olympiad in South America be remembered? Green pool water aside, this remains to be seen. One thing is certain: it will form another important chapter in this athletic competition’s rich history.
David Goldblatt examines the stories, surprises, struggles and successes in “The Games: A Global History of the Olympics.” With dashes of history, politics, ethnicity and popular culture, the well-respected sportswriter-author shows us how far the Olympics have come, and what the games’ future might hold.
The book starts out with a unique juxtaposition.
Greek journalist-editor Panagiotis Soutsos wrote in 1833, “Where are all your theatres and marble statues? Where are your Olympic Games?” Meanwhile, Baron de Coubertin, the father of the modern Olympics, said in 1892, “It is clear that the telegraph, railways, the telephone, the passionate research in science, congresses and exhibitions have done more for peace than any treaty or diplomatic convention. Well, I hope that athletics will do even more.”
Mr. Goldblatt notes that “Soutsos was the first to call for a revival of the games,” and “Coubertin was the first to bind that notion to some form of internationalism and make it happen.” He adds, “both ideas emerged from a long and bizarre encounter between European modernity and an ancient religious festival … about which they and we know only fragments.” Indeed, “[f]or over a millennium, all that really survived of the Olympic Games were words.”
The games’ return to Athens in 1896 provided a new, recorded history that was beautifully written and stunningly visual. Roughly 241 athletes competed in 43 events in nine disciplines, enabling many to perform “not just in multiple events, but multiple sports.” While this was an “international games,” Mr. Goldblatt noted it was “also understood as a peculiarly Greek triumph.” Antiquity had finally come face-to-face with modernity.
The Olympics have continued to grow and develop.
Stockholm 1912 “was a considerable success, domestically and internationally,” writes Mr. Goldblatt, “and entrenched the place of the Olympic movement in both global culture and global sport.” Antwerp 1920 was a difficult event that “may have looked desperately antiquated, with one foot in the belle poque” but was still “a hint of the future.” The first Winter Olympics were held in Chamonix, France in 1924, even though “[t]he IOC, and primarily Coubertin, were generally indifferent and on occasion scornful of winter sports.” Munich 1972 was “not short of spectacular sporting moments,” but was “eclipsed by the Palestinian Black September movement’s attack on the Israeli athletes and coaches in the Olympic village.” Beijing 2008 was a grand spectacle “understood as both reward and test for China’s re-engagement with the international order after decades of isolation or direct opposition.”
There are tales of Olympic athletes, too.
First and foremost is Jesse Owens, “the black American sprinter and long jumper who won four gold medals and the beat the best of the Germans in unequivocal style” in Berlin 1936. There were also the “quiet victories for the Jewish athletes” at those same games, which were largely ignored in Nazi Germany.
There’s the tragic story of Jim Thorpe, the Native American athlete stripped of his gold medals won at Stockholm 1912 for playing pro baseball and being “paid a pittance for his troubles.” (They were retroactively returned in 1982.) Female athletes were aided by Babe Didrikson in Los Angeles 1932, who performed so brilliantly that “the doyens of the sports press went out of their way to reframe her.” In recent years, we’ve witnessed everything from “the superhuman swimming of Michael Phelps to the unprecedented speed of Usain Bolt.”
Alas, the Olympics are far from perfect.
There have been bouts of “historical amnesia,” including at Rome 1960 with several contracts going to “big northern construction companies and the leading architectural lights of fascism.” The IOC has struggled “with the giganticism of the games and the widespread cultures of corruption that colonized the bidding process,” including Salt Lake City 2002’s bribery scandal. Issues with doping, and politicization of amateur sports, have also reared their ugly heads.
In spite of all this, the Olympics continues to attract talented athletes and excite crowds. The thrill of competition, and the endearing spirit of the games, provides enough fuel to keep the torch permanently aflame.
• Michael Taube is a contributor to The Washington Times.
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