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Fom ancient Athens to modern Athens, the changing face of the Olympics

Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed
THE Olympics returned home to Athens, Greece eight years too late. It would have been more appropriate if the centennial of the modern Olympics, 1996, was celebrated at Athens, the home of the Olympics, rather than Atlanta, the home of Coca Cola. The modern Olympics were renewed in Athens in 1896 at the Panathinaiko Stadium, the location of the first ancient Olympics in 776 B.C., and the site of this Olympics' two marathon finishes. Very few nations participated in the 1896 Olympics; America was represented primarily by "gentlemen" from Princeton and Harvard universities, and Britain was likewise represented predominantly by the students from Oxford and Cambridge universities.
Ancient Olympians would not recognise the modern version. The Olympics were meant to be about track and field. Now it is mostly about swimming; the first week anyway. Scandalously, there are as many events in swimming, originally a non-Olympic sport, as in track and field. People walk and run every day; they do not swim or do the "back," "breast," or "butterfly" stroke every day! Why don't they include 1000-meter, 3000-meter, 3200-
meter runs for men and women -distances that are either run internationally or in high schools and colleges in the US -- and add 20,000-meter run, which is close to a halfmarathon and can be run on the track in the Olympic stadium? Instead, silly events like synchronised swimming and diving, and rhythmic gymnastic have been added in the Olympics!
America's men's and women's 4x100 meter relay teams are the ultimate underachievers. Three times, most recently in 1960 and 1988 (which deprived Carl Lewis of his 10th Olympic gold) the men were disqualified for out-of-zone-baton exchange. American men in this event spend more time showboating than practicing baton exchange. Faulty baton exchange resulted in American men shockingly finishing second to the unheralded British, and Marion Jones's failure to hand over the baton to Lauryn Williams within the pass zone resulted in the women's team's disqualification. Typically and pompously, both the relay teams, the men through Maurice Greene and the women through Marion Jones, had predicted gold medals in world record times!
Four years ago, the writer had captioned his review of the Sydney Olympics for The Daily Star as "The Marion Jones Olympics." At Sydney, Jones won an unprecedented five track and field medals, three gold and two bronze. This Olympics, she won none! Jones looked awkward and clumsy in the long jump where she finished 5th, just ahead of India's Anju Bobby George. Like Carl Lewis (six foot one inch) Marion Jones (five foot ten inches) is tall and 100-meter gold medalist. Whereas Carl Lewis had the best long jump technique among top athletes, Marion Jones has the worst. Why she does not train under Lewis's coach Tom Tellez is beyond me. Jones's problems may lie elsewhere. At the risk of sounding unchivalrous I have to note that Jones's downfall started after she had an out of wedlock baby with world 100-meter record holder Tim Montgomery two years ago. Character matters even in track and field!
America had a more pleasant experience with the gold medal winning men's and women's 4x400 meter relay teams (India finished 7th in the women's). The real revelation of these games was the 400 meters champion, 20-year old Jeremy Wariner of Baylor University, Texas. As the writer was in Bangladesh during the US Olympics trials in July, he missed seeing Wariner run and shine. Tutored by Baylor alumnus, the great Michael Johnson (record holder and winner of 400-meter golds at Atlanta and Sydney) and coached by Johnson's Baylor coach Clyde Hart, Wariner easily won the 400-meters in a sensational 44.00 seconds and added a second gold as a member of US 4x400 meter relay team.
Wariner is white, who are not "supposed" to be good sprinters. I have always believed such stereotyping to be absolute nonsense. White European track and field stars continue to excel and win gold medals at the Olympics. I disagree with Sir Roger Bannister, the first man to break the 4-minute mile barrier, that blacks have an advantage over whites in sprints because of their superior bone formation around the hips. The real reason why blacks dominate the sprints is that most white Americans forgo track and opt for financially more lucrative baseball, football, basketball, and ice hockey. White American Bobby Morrow won both 100 and 200 meters in Melbourne (1956), Germany's Armin Harry won the 100 meters in Rome (1960), the USSR's Valery Borzov won both the 100 and 200 meters with the writer watching from the stands in the Olympic Stadium at Munich's 1972 Olympics, and Scotland's Allan Wells won the 100 meters in the US-boycotted Moscow Olympics of 1980. This year, Belarus' Yuliya Nesterenko won the women's 100-meters, Greece's Fani Halkia won the 400 meter hurdles, and Russia's Yuriy Borzakovskiy won the men's 800 meters by out-sprinting the Africans. Wariner also wants to run 200 meters in which his idol Michael Johnson holds the world record (an unbelievable 19.32 seconds at the Atlanta Olympics!) I have no doubt that the incredibly talented Wariner can better that, as well as break the world record in the 800 meters!
Perusing American press coverage of the Olympics one gets the impression that Afghan and Iraqi women at the Athens Olympics are the first Muslim women to do so. Let us educate ourselves. Two Muslim women, Nawal el-Moutawakel of Morocco and Hassiba Boulmarka of Algeria have already won Olympic gold medals in track and field competition. Nawal el-Moutawakel, a top executive of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) since 1998, currently the director of the committee that will decide which city hosts the 2012 Olympics (among London, Madrid, Moscow, New York, and Paris) won the gold medal in the women's 400 meters hurdles in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Hassiba Boulmarka of Algeria won the prestigious women's 1500 meters gold medal at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. At the just concluded Athens Olympics, el-Moutawakel's compatriot and coreligionist Morocco's Hasna Benhassi won the silver medal in women's 800 meters final. When Nawal el-Moutawakel, then a student at America's Iowa State University, won her Olympic gold medal some Muslims said she should not be running in shorts and singlets, but Morocco's late King Hassan suggested that all girls born on the day of Nawal el-Moutawakel's gold medal victory, August 8, 1984, be named Nawal. A national celebrity since that day, one commuter line in Casablanca, Nawal's hometown, is named after her -- the Nawal.
This has been a good Olympics for the Moroccans. The greatest middle distance runner of all time, the world record holder in the mile and the 1500 meters, Hicham El-Guerrouj finally won the Olympic gold in the 1500 meters. El-Guerrouj was tripped and fell with a lap to go in the final of Atlanta Olympics 1500 meters (although I doubt that he would have denied the । eventual winner,Algeria's legendary Noureddine Morceli), and in the 2000 Sydney Olympics the Kenyans, working in tandem made sure he won only the silver. "People were expecting him to win (in Sydney)," Nawal el-Moutawakel said. "I don't know what happened. He even apologised. Moroccans do not expect second place. Now he had his wife, his father and mother, his little baby. He came a long way this year. He's my hero." A sentiment echoed by Hicham's fellow competitors each of whom, starting with silver medalist Kenya's Lagat, came and congratulated Hicham as he lay prostrate on the ground after the race. El-Guerrouj was not done. In the 5000 meters, an event he had run only a few times in his life, El-Guerrouj won his second Athens Olympic gold by out-kicking the prohibitive favourite, the gold medalist at the Athens 10,000 meters, Ethiopia's Kenenisa Bekele, smiling and extending his arms in triumph as he crossed the finish line, kissing his hands and his right knee before touching his head to the track in his customary Muslim prayer. The gentle Moroccan, immensely loved and respected by his peers, thus became the first man in 80 years to duplicate the feat Finland's immortal Paavo Nurmi accomplished in the 1924 Paris Olympics. El-Guerrouj won the ultimate accolade when he was chosen as one of the four athletes, along with Namibia's outstanding sprinter Frankie Fredricks and a Muslim women medalist in Hijab to stand on the podium with IOC President Jacques Rogge and Athens 2004 president Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki.
Nineteen year old American swimmer Michael Phelps from Baltimore tied a record with 8 medals in one Olympics, although he failed to match Mark Spitz's Munich Olympic tally of seven swimming golds. One must sympathise with the winner of men's all round gymnastics American Paul Hamm. It was not his mistake that gave him the gold. But it was a mistake, nevertheless, by the judges that cost the real winner, Korean gymnast Yang Tae Young the gold medal. Hamm should respond to the letter sent to him by the International Gymnastic Federation President Bruno Grandi and hand over the gold to the Korean. The Greek spectators were right to hold up the competition for eleven minutes and boo the gymnastics judges who gave the magnificent Russian gymnast on the parallel bars atrocious points. Otherwise marvelous hosts, the Greek spectators were atrocious themselves when they held up the start of the men's 200-meter final by chanting "Hellas, Hellas" (Greece, Greece) as they lamented the absence of their national hero, the winner of the men's 200-meters at Sydney, Kostas Kenteris. Kenteris (and Katerina Thanou) withdrew from the Olympics after failing to appear for drug tests (which casts doubt on his Sydney gold) and faking an accident. The crowd implied that it was somehow the fault of the American sprinters that Kenteris was absent! Just as they had done in men's 400 meters final, when the race finally started the Americans responded coolly by finishing 1-2-3 in the men's 200-meter final!
I still believe that to break the Olympics medal drought, Bangladesh must concentrate on finesse events such as archery, diving, and shooting. As Australia, the Netherlands, and Germany took the three medals, the best the sub continentals could do in field hockey was finish fifth (Pakistan). After 108 years, the marathon lived up to its name and was run from Marathon to Athens. Legend has it that in 490 B.C. Pheidippides ran from Marathon to Athens bringing the news of the Greeks' triumph over the Persians in the Battle of Marathon before collapsing and dying of exhaustion. The race "marathon" commemorates his run. While Briton Kelly Holmes (800 and 1500 meters), like Hicham El-Guerrouj, became a rare double gold medalist in track, Britain's more celebrated medal hope, Paula Radcliffe, scored a double of different sort -she dropped out of both the marathon and the 10,000 meters! Therefore, instead of celebrating a blonde national hero, Britain had to settle for a black one!
No world record was broken in men's track and field. The only world record to fall in the women's events was in pole vault, a recent event in which records are broken several times a year. In the men's 110-meter hurdles, China's Liu Xiang tied the world record (12.91 seconds), demonstrating that to set or tie a world record one has to run a perfect race, as he did. The winning times and distances in the track and field events at Athens were in some cases 12 to 13 per cent slower/shorter than the world records, especially in the strength events (shot-put, discus, hammer, and javelin). This contrasts with swimming, which has cleaned up its act, where several world and Olympic records fell. It is almost certain that some track and field records set in the 1980s are drug-tainted. After the establishment of The World AntiDoping Agency after the Sydney Olympics in 2000, with authority to test any athlete for drugs anytime, suddenly many athletes are not performing at the level they used to! Twenty-five drug cheaters were caught and punished this Olympics. With gold medals in events ranging from canoeing through nine diving medals and golds in men's 110-meter hurdles and women's 10,000 China gave warning that it will be a major force to be reckoned with as the host of the Beijing Olympics in the summer of 2008.