A farce of Olympic proportions

George Hook

THE important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win, but to take part; the important thing in life is not triumph, but the struggle; the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.
It is hard to believe as we watch the cynicism of Rio that those were the words of Pierre de Coubertin, the founding father of the modern Olympics. The 1896 games in Athens had 14 countries participating compared to the 206 in Brazil this week.
My love affair with the games started in 1952 aged eleven when they were held in Helsinki. Today that love is no more as the games have descended into a contest between pharmacists rather than athletes. The craven sports bodies have allowed proven cheats to compete and for the first time in history medal winners are booed and jeered on the podium rather than lauded as heroes.
It is hard to believe that Jim Thorpe, the greatest American athlete of the twentieth century, who won gold medals in 1912 for the pentathlon and decathlon at Stockholm, had his name expunged from Olympic records because he had played baseball for $2 a game. The American Olympic committee ignored natural justice and the rules of the time to destroy Thorpe. One wondered if he had been white rather than Native American, would the decision have been different.

Proud decades
Ireland’s involvement has been a proud one. In 1906, Peter O’Connor refused to compete for Great Britain and climbed the flagpole to raise an Irish flag. The Clonmel hammer thrower Pat O’Callaghan won successive gold medals in 1928 and 1932 and might have won a third in Berlin in 1936 had not the first of many splits in Irish athletics prevented his participation. Bob Tisdall was also a hero in 1932 bringing home the 400m hurdles gold.
In the early hours of the morning on December 1 1956, we listened to the crackling radio commentary from Melbourne as Ronnie Delany delivered an extraordinary coup de grace to win the 1500 metres final. Even now watching on YouTube, it beggars belief that the Irishman was last but one at the bell.
It should also be remembered that boxers, John Caldwell, Freddy Gilroy, Fred Tiedt and Tony Byrne brought home medals. That Australian success ignited a love of the Olympics amongst a whole generation of young Irish men and women.

Great no more
Since then our failings have been less about performance than about our integrity. Swimming and equestrian gold medals have attracted controversy or been disallowed for issues around doping, and the headlines for the current games have been dominated by a boxer’s foolishness and much more importantly by an international ticketing scam that allegedly has links to the Olympic Council of Ireland.
Golf, a sport that should never have been accepted, made a mockery of the games as the world’s superstars stayed away, using what increasingly looked like sham excuse of fears over the Zika Virus. The reality almost certainly was their quest for even more millions of dollars and a Major title. It took Padraig Harrington to single-handedly bring some respect to the sport and the tournament with his obvious pride in being an Olympian. He truly espoused the 130-year-old ideal that it is not to win, but to take part.
Incredibly, the rugby authorities allowed a ‘bastardised’ form of the sport to be showcased in the greatest show on earth. At a time when the 15-a-side is facing its greatest challenges they allowed a game that is a threat rather than asset to get television coverage to an audience of billions.
Meanwhile, the country of Jack Kyle, Mike Gibson and Brian O’Driscoll failed to qualify. Instead the men and women of Japan, Spain and minnows Kenya qualified, while hard to believe, Colombia hardly a hot bed of the sport, made it to the women’s event.
The reality is that the IRFU is scared of the abbreviated form of the game and the damage it could cause the fragile revenue projections for the professional game. The provinces are hanging by a financial thread and dependent on European qualification to avoid falling on the mercies of the parent body. Munster’s plight is already well documented.
The schools’ game could disappear at a stroke as educational establishments see the value of sports that take up smaller space, needs less qualified coaches and is almost injury-free. The downside is that there will be no space for fat kids, slow kids or youngsters with poor hand/eye coordination. The raison d’etre of rugby as a participation sport in a school would be lost.
The Olympic games is over because it has lost the romance that kept it alive for over a century, apart from two world wars. The ancient games fell into disrepute when Nero entered the chariot race and declared himself the winner even though he fell off during the contest.
This time around many of the winners will finish but we would prefer if they fell off and joined the queue at the local pharmacy.