The Olympic Games are supposed to be a celebration of the human spirit. A time when most of us sit back and watch in awe and admiration individuals who have worked tirelessly to be the best in their chosen event battle it out for what has been described as the ultimate prize, an Olympic medal.
What made the Olympic Games special was, as their founder stated over a century ago, that it was not just about the winning, but the taking part. Being to call yourself an Olympian for the rest of your life. Having been there and rubbed shoulders with the best of the best from a myriad of other sports, an opportunity that is unique. An opportunity that comes around only every four years, and an opportunity that is given to a select few.
In today’s world the Olympic Games must be wonderful for the modern day athlete whose life is like being in a fishbowl looking out. They live their lives while he rest of the world looks in on every aspect of it, and like the fish there is nowhere to hide. The Olympic Village has for decades – since the tragedy in Munich in 1972 – been restricted to athletes alone. It has been off limits to the media. Allowing the athletes to relax and mingle as they wish. It is something that must remain sacrosanct.
Today’s world is very different from the one of yesteryear.
It seems ironic that the 1964 Tokyo Olympics were labelled ‘the last Innocent Games.’ The Olympics before Politics and professionalism came to the fore. For Politics had started to raise its head back in Melbourne in 1956, when in the Athletes Village the USSR had created a medal tally board to measure the success of its Communist regime against the might of the Western world, the United States of America.
Now the medal table has become a regular feature of every Olympiad. Yet even this table has its own anomaly. The table does not simply have the nation that has won the most medals in total sit top as the number one sporting nation, but it is based on the number of Gold medals a nation has won. In other words almost dismissing the achievements of those athletes who have still managed to win a medal.
It is all so very sad.
The success of a nation at the Olympic Games should not be based on the colour of a medal. Surely sport and competition is about far more than this?
What is interesting today is to look at the medal table and ask is it not simply a table of state sponsored programs and bragging rights between each of those programs?
If it is not Governments throwing millions of dollars at athletic programmes to achieve success at the Olympic Games in order to create the ‘feel-good factor’ and nationalistic pride, it is about Governments giving athletes jobs which they are never forced to carry out as long as they continue to perform at the highest level. Some such athletes have been known to receive promotions based on their sporting success.
Of course this is all fine and dandy when teams and athletes are winning, but when they falter it becomes ugly. Suddenly that funding is a waste of money and the backlash is becoming scary.
This has most likely never been clearer than in Tokyo.
The media, which has often not been following the form of a team or an athlete for four years suddenly jumps on board and makes bold predictions about their competitors and as one athlete sadly said ‘sets us up to fail.’ In other words if they do not reach the predicted lofty heights of the media they have failed, when that may not be the case at all.
It has been disturbing to read the vitriol aimed at some wonderful athletes who have not been able to repeat their feats of the past. Gymnast Simone Biles whose sport requires not just physical excellence but remarkable mental strength and belief has been slammed by many for her withdrawal.
Yet prior to the Olympic Games the media continually focussed on how she was going win five gold medals and become the greatest gymnast pf all time. Before she arrived in Tokyo the warning signs were there, when in one interview she stated “I truly do feel like I have the weight of the world on my shoulders at times.”
In a sport where you cannot have self doubt, where you have to be totally focussed she should be admired for having had the courage to withdraw, knowing herself and that she was not in a fit mental space to compete. Had she competed and had a terrible fall, one that could have crippled her for life, would those who put that weight of expectation on her have accepted any responsibility?
At the time she made that call she was probably never more alone in her life. There would have been team mates and coaches who wanted her to compete, because with her on board they were more likely to be a part of a successful team, which would have possibly won a medal. It would have been a very hard decision to make. The pressure from those you have worked with and alongside for so long, although unspoken would have been immense. Simone Biles loves Gymnastics, and would no doubt have given anything to compete, and without those expectations and the eyes of the world on her every move she may well have. Some will say she could not handle the pressure, but only she knows the pressure that she was truly under and what effect if was having on her. We should not be so quick to judge, and should applaud the courage such a decision took. As she said after her withdrawal, “there’s more to life than just gymnastics.”
Four years ago few outside of Singapore had heard of Joseph Schooling. In Rio he won his country’s first ever Olympic gold medal with his stunning victory over his boyhood hero and the seemingly unbeatable Michael Phelps. In Tokyo he failed to qualify from the heats.
In Rio Schooling set an Olympic record of 50.39 in the 100m Butterfly. Since 2016, Schooling has gone under 51 seconds only three times. He achieved that mark twice at the 2017 World Championships and once at a meeting in the U.S. Yet still the expectations were that he would perform again albeit five year later in Tokyo. The media expected, some would say a nation expected and many around the world expected. Yet those expectations were unrealistic.
The result does not reflect the hard work or the effort. As Schooling stated “The time just didn’t reflect everything that we have done this year, sometimes that is just how it is, it is hard to digest.” Yet once again many have slammed him. A man who delivered his country’s first ever Gold medal. How can people turn on those who have achieved so much so quickly? Do they have any idea how hard it is to win a medal at an Olympic Games in the first place, let alone repeat that feat?
The reaction of some people today is baffling. Is it a reaction based on ignorance, or is a reaction perpetrated by a media building up expectations without sharing the facts? In Schooling’s case look at his times, it was always going to be hard to win back to back, it would have taken something truly special.
Is social media to blame? Have the creators of the various social media platforms given the ill-informed masses a platform to be so cruel? Or is it the plethora of reality television shows in which we see people humiliated that has seen many seek to also humiliate those who work so hard to make an Olympic Games, compete in a final and dare to dream of medalling?
Whatever the cause it is extremely disconcerting, unnecessary, unfair and unwarranted.
Maybe the doing away of the medal table would be a start. That the emphasis go back upon the athletes rather than their nation.
In 1972 Vince Matthews was sent home after winning the Gold medal in the 400m Athletics final. HIs attitude as the American national anthem played was deemed disrespectful, as he opted not to stand to attention and stare at the flag.
In his autobiography he wrote “As the band struck the last few bars of the national anthem, “… land of the free, and the home of the brave,’’ I was standing there just being myself. That was the way I felt about the whole program. I had zeroed everybody out. There were just a few people who had helped me get where I was. If I had an opportunity, I would congratulate them and thank them. The rest of the people hadn’t done anything for me. If I stood at attention, I was standing at attention for the whole country. The country was getting the praise for what I had done…. ‘’ Many would quietly tell you that this is even more the case 49 years later.
Matthews has been asked by many in recent times for an interview. Most requests go unanswered. Those who have received an answer often receive the same response that NBC’s Tim Layden did where Matthews wrote, “I live by the following quote `When looking back doesn’t interest you anymore, you’re doing the right thing.’
Sports fans and the media love to look back, for our past makes the present relevant. Yet maybe it is time to look back with reverence rather than as a vehicle to increase our expectations in the present.
Hopefully Joseph Schooling and Simone Biles learn that quote and keep it with them. They have plenty to be proud of, and hopefully when they look at their medals they remember that, and not the hurtful barbs or the minority.
In the meantime ways must be found to try and limit or prevent such situations, maybe the binning of the nationalistic medal table is the answer. Maybe it is time to go back to the days of old when the Olympics were more about the top athletes going head to head?
