Olympic party becomes a funeral

Press, 27 July 1976, Page 16

Olympic party becomes a funeral

By CHRISTOPHER BRASHER, a sports writer for the “Observer,” London, who won a gold medal for Britain in the 3000 metres steeplechase at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956.

They came in peace and friendship, their minds and bodies honed to perfection to show their prowess to the world. And then the politicians of the world started to snipe at the ideal which these young people represented and when the snipers’ bullets did not prove fatal, they used the cudgel called blackmail. And you cannot submit to blackmail although in the fight against it you may well die. Which is why the body of the Olympic movement lies bleeding in this armed camp on the shores of the St Lawrence River. Why, after the massacre of Munich, did we expose ourselves again to those who seek to use this great movement for their own ends? Let Lord Kalianin, the Irish peer who presides over the Olympics, give the answer: “We all nave our own beliefs. We all have our friends and enemies. But the aim of the Olympic movement is to subjugate these enshrined in the intertwining Olympic rings repre-

seating the five continents of the world, wedded together in sport, peace and friendship. “If this is not accomplished then the Olympic movement and all sport, whether amateur or professional, is doomed. Instead of progressing towards the common ideals, we shall retreat into barbarism,” he said. Those are the words of an idealistic man who was near to tears when he had to submit to the last-minute political interference of the Canadian, Government under the Prime Minister, Mr Trudeau. He tried to find a way round Mr Trudeau and to win two vital concessions on the Taiwan question. Weary almost to a state of shellshock, he was able to announce tha 7 the Taiw ' _ se athletes would be allowed into the country 7 and that they would take part in the Olympic Games marching behind their own flag and playing their own anthem as long as they called themselves Taiwan instead of the Republic of China. But Tai-

wan would not accept this formula. And then most of the African nations withdrew because the 1.0. C. would not exclude New Zealand from the Games. What was New Zealand’s crime? That their rugby players — inappropriately known as the All Blacks — are competing in South Africa. This political warfare is fought out in a hotel named The Queen Elizabeth in downtown Montreal and • ' e fetid atmosphere inside that huge building is stale and dank and has nothing n common with the fresh, youthful atmosph- "- of the Olympic village. So let us take ourselves into the clean air of the village to find out how the athletes feel at this Olympiad for which they have prepared themselves for four years.

If it is possible for 9000 athletes from almost every race and religion in the world to have one common thought, it is ‘'-'s: why the hell don’t the politicians keep their noses out of our affairs? They, the atb'TPs, want only, one thing: to test their minds and bodies against all their rivals. The fulfilment of their greatest dream — to win a — is tarnished if some of the greatest world are absent because they have been withdrawn by their governments. John Walker, for instance, the New Zealander who holds the world record for the mile, is sick to his stomach because his great friend and rival Filbert Bayi, the world record holder for the metric mile, the 150 n metres, has been kept at home in

Tanzania by his Government. Walker's task may be much easier now. but he did not come here for an easy gold m~ J -' "me ins: d to prove to himself — not to the world — that he is indeed the supreme champion of his event. ■ ~.d «" it is with all of them. One of the Taiwanese yachtsmen who was hauled up from,- Kingston "• ISO miles from Montreal to give a press conference in the Queen Elizabeth said: “I will march anything — a handkerchief if ncrc": y. I c>"“ , “ here to compete and I want to compete.” The problem is that the Games have become so big, so important, that al’ manner of politicians and pressure groups, all sorts of crvv'rs and idealists, want to use them for r-n-n ends. And so ''• of us. Does it not give you a feelin? that all is right with your country when an athlete of your own nationality wins a gold medal? But he is not doing it for you. He

is doing it for himself — net to make money or to further his career, but simply to know himself. It is as simple and pure as that: one man deciding many years ago that he is going to ho”'' his mind and body to perfection and then to test that perfection against the youth of the world at a n«>-tv held once every four years. But this is not a party. It is f-meral ceremony for a great ideal. 0.F.N.5., Copyright.