The Olympics: A Summitry of Sport

TOO many men--from France's Baron Pierre de Coubertin to General of the Army Douglas MacArthur to Adolf Hitler--have tried to make too much of the Olympic Games. The baron, father of the modern Games, once said: "The Olympic movement tends to bring together in a radiant union all the qualities which guide mankind to perfection." The general, as president of the U.S. Olympic Committee in 1928, wrote: "Nothing is more characteristic of the genius of the American people than is their genius for athletics." The Fuehrer envisaged the 1936 Games in Berlin --the last time they were held on German soil--as a showcase for the Third Reich and Aryan racial supremacy.

None deserves a gold medal for perception (though the baron might merit a silver for idealism). Since their rebirth at Athens in 1896, the Games have seldom been remarkable for radiant union, and the XX Olympiad, which begins on Aug. 26, is not likely to prove an exception. Bickering among officials has almost become a separate Olympic event. Squabbles among competitors are less common, though sometimes more dramatic. At Melbourne in 1956, for example, a water-polo match turned into a miniature of the Hungarian Revolution. The Hungarian team beat the Russians in a brutal contest for the gold medal that left the green pool streaked with blood.

General MacArthur's argument that Olympic results reflect a nation's achievement outside of athletics is highly debatable at best. Some measure of chauvinism is understandable, but to interpret physical feats as evidence of sociological or ideological superiority is as absurd as trying to settle a United Nations debate with a foot race up First Avenue. And the tactic can backfire. At Berlin, Hitler had to sit and squirm as an American black--the legendary Jesse Owens--clearly outshone Germany's Nordic "supermen" to win gold medals in four events. Still, rampant nationalism continues to mock the purported ideals of the Olympics. Since 1952 the focus has been mainly on whether the U.S. team, representing a free, democratic society, could beat the Russians, carrying the banner for Communism. This year, a powerful East German team will be trying to turn the victory stands of Munich into podiums for propaganda on behalf of the "superior" social order in their half of Germany.

There are other misconceptions about what the Games really are. One is held most forcibly by Avery Brundage, venerable (85) president of the International Olympic Committee since 1952. "The Olympics," he said recently, "are intended for those athletes for whom sport is merely recreation for personal pleasure. It is an Olympic rule that they must have a vocation entirely separate from their particular sport." The rule is constantly flouted, to say nothing of being selectively and ineptly enforced. Austria's champion skier, Karl Schranz, was barred from last February's Winter Olympics at Sapporo on charges of professionalism, to which dozens of his competitors would --at least in private--plead guilty. The amateur status of most athletes from Communist countries is also in question. Potential champions get superior housing, superior food and superior wages while they concentrate on training for their events.

The hypocrisy of shamateurism at the Games may end one day. Many influential sport officials now agree with the thousands of athletes who contend that the Olympics should be open to professionals and amateurs alike, as are major tennis and golf tourneys. Until that happens, though, the Munich Games will be contested by pampered professionals as well as impoverished amateurs; by athletes who have full access to modern training facilities, and by others who have had to climb fences after dark for a surreptitious workout; by competitors who have been encouraged by gifts of cash and cars, and by others who have had to borrow money to travel to a qualifying meet.

Are the Olympic Games worth holding at all? Of course. After all the tawdry trappings of nationalism and pseudo-amateurism are stripped away, the contests do offer a rare and often wondrous celebration of the human animal. In no other field of endeavor--not medicine, not law, not business--do the acknowledged world leaders get together to test their skills against each other. The exquisite essence of the Games comes in the competition among individuals, the testing of speed against speed, strength against strength, willpower against willpower. In such moments, those who watch are treated to the most public spectacle yet devised of man trying to extend his reach beyond his grasp.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.