The Press MONDAY, AUGUST 17, 1936. The Olympic Games

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21863, 17 August 1936, Page 8

The Press MONDAY, AUGUST 17, 1936. The Olympic Games

Herr Hitler climbed down from bis seat in the Olympic arena yesterday afternoon after spending 14 days acclaiming and decorating the victors at the eleventh Olympic Games. During that fortnight the fames were the occasion for riots and the arrest of hundreds in Vienna, ugly demonstrations and the stoning of a German consul in Peru, fighting in the Olympic football arena, and unseemly disputes among the competitors, officials, and spectators in the wrestling stadium. For this a certain section of the British people will hold the Olympic Games responsible, and they will want to know, as British people have wanted to know after every Olympic festival, whether it is advisable to hold the games at all. The idealists who instituted the modern Olympic Games in 1896, headed by Baron de Coubertin, a French political scientist, had visions of the games as a leading force for world peace. They spoke of uniting the youth of all nations in friendly competition and hoped “that the spirit of inter- “ national comity might be advanced by the •* celebration of their chivalrous and peaceful “contests,” De Coubertin had read much of the Greeks, who in their original Olympic Games had striven to express their ideal, the perfect harmony of body and mind. To the Greeks an Olympic victory was a victory given by the gods-as reward for long periods of patient training and discipline of the body and mind. For their successes they owed tribute to their gods, and by their successes they stimulated others of their race to still finer achievements. Their sport was inspired, as art is inspired, by a burning desire to express an ideal and at the same time to praise the gods who gave them the means of expressing it. This ideal of balance of body and mind was caught up with enthusiasm by de Coubertin, who had been brought up at a time when the French nation was inclined to over-development of the brain and neglect of the body. The Olym c Games have brought representatives of every nation into contact, and ever since 1896 they have been the occasion for disputes. Some British observers persistently hold the view that the games bring the young men of the various nations together under the worst possible conditions—that the Olympic torch has been set alight at the wrong end, where it will burn not for peace but to set a flame to national prejudice. Instead of meeting in a rivalry that is essentially friendly, the athletes get down immediately to the business of fighting one another in the boxing arena and testing their strength on the racing track. This, critics claim, is nothing better than a good breeding ground for dispute, a stage set for the unseemly display of national pride, and in every way a force against world peace. It may be, however, that the very occurrence of these riots and disputes is evidence of the value of the games. These upheavals are the clashing of the temperaments of nations strange to one another, and perhaps through the constant clashing of temperaments peoples will ultimately reach some understanding and learn some forbearance. To the British nations it may seem absurd to suggest that sport has this importance in the affairs of nations. Englishmen regard sport as a pastime, an essential but not by any means all-important paft of the national life. But it has been obvious during the 1936 Olympic Games that the attitude of other nations towards sport is strangely different from the British. Many of the European nations still look on achievement on the sports field as one means of asserting national pride. The futility of this intense nationalism can be demonstrated to them by constant contact and frequent defeat at the hands of other nations, and in this the Olympic Games may be of real value. The more frequently the games are held the more opportunities there will be for an outlet for pent up national pride and the more quickly the worlcl will grasp the real meaning of the Olympic ideal. '