Peter Sinclair: Stamina, grace and stature

"I have always felt sorry for athletes. No other class of men is condemned to such transient renown, so brief an interval between sublimity and oblivion ...

"Sport has been producing megastars for over 2000 years, but can you name a single one before, say, 1800? The only name which springs to mind is that of the gladiator Spartacus."

I wrote that last year, and I was wrong. I'd forgotten about Coroebus of Elis.

Who? Well, the bells his name should ring are a little faint by this time, but I still found nearly 70 references on Google to the father of all athletes, the first winner of the first event (the "stade," or 100m dash) at the first Olympics in 776BC .

History didn't - couldn't - record what his time was, but it will never be beaten. By trade he was a cook, and you'll find his story at www.princeton.edu. He was awarded not gold but green - an olive-branch cut from a sacred tree with a sacred knife. He also won immortality.

Among the many immortals of the modern Games, three have always symbolised for me its noblest qualities: speed, grace and stamina - a slight departure from Baron Pierre de Coubertin's branding for the first modern Olympics in 1896 of "Faster Higher Stronger."

Which is why I always think of 1930s skater Sonja Henie. She may not have won as many medals as Larissa Latynina Russia's gymnast-genius who from Melbourne to Tokyo captured a record nine gold, five silver and four bronze.

Yet this diminutive Norwegian, who later became a film star, reintroduced a vital ingredient to the Games - grace.

Stamina? Anyone my age will probably think of Emil Zatopek, the "Locomotive" who, with his wife Dana, dominated long-distance running at the 1952 Helsinki Games.

As for speed, a crowded field, but surely Jesse Owens deserves the mantle dropped nearly 3000 years ago by Coroebus, and not for his speed alone. He managed to assert the essential decency and brotherhood of the Olympics.

"Without these members of the black race, " sniffed Third Reich Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, "the Yanks were the great disappointment of the Games."

If only one athlete of their stature appears in Sydney, they will be a great Games indeed.

Another side of the hoopla

Ireverence is an internet tradition, so behind the hoopla of any big web event can be heard alternative mutterings. Having inflated its balloons, the net nearly always produces a pin.

The most hallowed sporting events aren't immune. In 1997, even the Soccer World Cup had to put up with a lot of cyber-barracking from an entire underground of anti-soccer maquisards.

And so it is with the Sydney Olympics 2000.

Unlike Atlanta, which merely suffered civic incompetence, confusion in the streets and a pipe-bomb, these Games look like becoming highly politicised.

The official website is as busy and glossy and apolitical as anything IBM has ever put up - this is the techno-giant's last hurrah: citing huge costs and dubious commercial benefits, IBM plans to pack its medals and retire.

But for an entirely different perspective, visit the Sydney Independent Media Centre or the Sydney Alternative Media Centre.

This is Protest Central, where various groups use the Games to put their own political tics on public display. Or perhaps the title should go to Real Games, which resents military powers over civilians, security procedures and "the SOCOG Follies" - it's certainly true that the minister responsible, Michael Knight, allowed his colleagues to make a complete hash of things in the run-up; the ticketing scandals alone, like Montana brush-fires, raged for weeks.

Others are determined that these will become the Green Games. At Green Games Watch 2000 whingeing is practically an Olympic event as the cycle track squashes rare plants and tennis and archery threaten the Golden Bell Frog.

Most Tedious: the Anti-Olympics Alliance, a gloomy bunch of contrarians who want to "highlight the negative social impact of the Games", whatever that may mean.

I prefer the salty humour of Onion lookalike Silly 2000, which is actually more entertaining than the official site it spoofs.

Like the rest of us, it seems to be just trying to enjoy the Games in its own way.

Links:

Spartacus

Google

Coroebus of Elis wins in 776 BC

1896 Olympics

Larissa Latynina

Emil Zatopek

Jesse Owens

Olympics 2000

Sydney Independent Media Centre

Sydney Alternative Media Centre

Real Games

Green Games Watch 2000

Anti-Olympics Alliance

The Onion

Silly 2000

Sydney 2000


E-mail: petersinclair@email.com

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