Soon the Olympic summer games will be upon us. One need not be a sports fan to appreciate the athleticism on exhibit during the quadrennial festival of competition. While certain marque events, like the 100-meter sprint, draw the greatest attention, a legion of unsung archers, sailors and table tennis players will all demonstrate transcendent proficiency in their chosen field.
One of the hallmarks of the Olympics is purity of performance. Until recently this meant participation only by amateurs. The matter of amateur competition quickly brings up a single name: Jim Thorpe. It has been 100 years since Thorpe’s double gold medal wins in the pentathlon and decathlon. As part of the medal presentation, King Gustav V pronounced Thorpe “the greatest athlete in the world.”
Shortly thereafter, the International Olympic Committee stripped Thorpe of his medals and removed his records from the roles because Thorpe had played minor league baseball during 1909-1910. Just for a dose of perspective on this injustice, Thorpe’s 1,500 meter run time (4 minutes 40.1 seconds) record stood until 1972.
Neely Tucker, writing for the Washington Post, observed that today’s reigning gold medalist, Bryan Clay, would have beaten Thorpe by only a second. It bears remembering that Thorpe ran the event in a pair of mismatched shoes after his went mysteriously missing.
Even when the IOC presented Thorpe’s family with replica medals in 1982, they refused to reinstate his records. To this day the injustice remains uncorrected. Moreover, several white athletes who had also played minor league prior to Olympic competition, were allowed to keep their records and medals. In the specter of the Team USA’s men’s basketball squad — drawn heavily from experienced NBA multi-millionaires — the message is mixed at best. These guys are the antithesis of amateurs. Taking a more strict construction of the term amateur, one might even make the case that college athletes having received scholarships and other incentives for athletic performance fail to meet the “purity” test.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
On the matter of tests, this Olympics will be visited by the greatest barrage of tests for performance enhancing drugs in history. According to a Smithsonian Magazine article on the subject, IOC organizers plan to test at least 5,000 of the 14,000 athletes and all of the medalists. Given that modern “medicine” has facilitated a tremendous variety of chemical cheats: anabolic steroids; blood-doping; hormones; asthma medications; hormone antagonists; and myriad other boutique enhancements — 240 in all — such expansive tests appear regrettably necessary.
Of course a little chemical assist is hardly new to the Olympics. Ancient Greeks took special potions to boost their performance. In the 1904 games some athletes even took a cocktail of cocaine, heroine and strychnine. Such absurd excess makes us recall an old Saturday Night Live skit, “The All Drug Olympics” in which competitors were encouraged to take whatever they wanted. Kevin Nealon, as the sports caster, says: “Getting ready to lift now is Sergei Akmudov of the Soviet Union. His trainer has told me that he’s taken anabolic steroids, Novacaine, Nyquil, Darvon, and some sort of fish paralyzer. Also, I believe he’s had a few cocktails within the last hour or so. All of this is, of course, perfectly legal at the All-Drug Olympics, in fact it’s encouraged. Akmudov is getting set now, he’s going for a clean and jerk of over 1,500 pounds, which would triple the existing world record. That’s an awful lot of weight… and here he goes.”
The camera then cuts to Phil Hartman dressed as the weight lifter. He bends, takes the bar and with a terrific scream and upward jerk, pulls off both his arms… hands still clenched to the bar.
Yes, the 1988 comedy skit is preposterous, but its humor rests in its proximity to modern sport. It is not enough to be excellent. One must be superhuman. To this point we should remember — the ancient Greeks staged the games to honor their gods, not to create them.