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| Sunday, 25 July 2004 |
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Olympics return to Greece : Contaminated grandeur The Arena with Srian Obeyesekere Ancient Greece! Its beliefs, myth, a wild branch of olives for a medal, ancient culture and festivity will be re-lived when the Olympic Games revisits Athens.
From the great festival at the temple of Zeus in Olympia, where the Games originated, the Olympics has journeyed across the globe, making the likes of Jesse Owens synonymous with the game in a bygone era, and Mark Spitz and Carl Lewis of a later generation in a hugely one sided American domination and bringing silver medal euphoria to Sri Lanka when Duncan White won himself a medal in the 1948 games. The 'Olympic torch' has been a symbol of uniting sportsmen and women in feverish, but friendly competition in drawing mankind together. Dating to 776 B.C., the festival held by ancient Greeks drew athletes, authors, poets, artists and sculptors together every four years in honour of God Zeus at Olympia in the town of Pyrgos in Western Peloponnese in Greece. From a 5-day festival, which bound athletes by the Olympic oath for a race covering over a distance of 175-metres, the Games has indeed fanned to be embraced as 'the' greatest sporting event on earth. When the Games was only meant for born Greeks, the festival was decorated by prize givings and feastings where there was physique and health covering competitions such as running, jumping, throwing the discus, javelin, wrestling and boxing. But interestingly, the Games was abolished subsequently and did not exist for nearly 1,500 years after which, it was revived in 1886 in Athens due to the efforts of Frenchman Baron Pierre de Coubertin. Since then the Games has been held in Paris (France) in 1900, St. Louis (USA) 1904, Antwerp (Belgium) 1920, Paris (France) 1924, Amsterdam (Netherland's) 1928, Los Angeles (USA) 1932, Berlin (Germany) 1936, London (1948), Helsinki (Finland) 1952, Melbourne (Australia) 1956, Rome (Italy) 1960, Tokyo (Japan) 1964, Munich (Germany) 1972, Montreal (Canada) 1976, Moscow (Russia) 1980, Rome (Italy) 1984, Seoul (South Korea) 1988, Los Angeles (USA) 1992 and Sydney (Australia) 1996. Over the years, the Games has become weather hardened like its Greek Sun Gods. Today, modern science and technology has taken the Games from its ancient myth to a new age, where money and total commitment add to modern science where the golden word governing success is 'fitness' on which medal success thrives. A medal success far flung from those ancient Greek days when olive branches were offered as a prize to winners. So much so that the super rich countries like the United States of America holds sway next to Russia, Germany and China from the Asian bloc. But if Greek ideology has come to be showcased as man's most universal extravaganza at that level, the fact that winning at any cost has today seen athletics scandalised by the use of dope to enhance performance, would be looked by the ancient Greeks as a curse to their Games for all the cultural and historical significance they have attached to it. As it is, the use of performance enhancing drugs has crept into the Olympics as well and is a stigma to the authorities - the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Dating back to that holocaust at the 1988 Seoul Olympics in South Korea when Ben Johnson was stripped of his gold medal, after winning the 100 metres sprint event, for consuming nandrolene, dope has cast an ugly cloud over the Games. So much so that according to recent reports, even the next in line to Johnson in that race, Carl Lewis who was awarded the race, is said to have failed a dope test but allowed to compete. The drugs related syndrome is such that it looks like stripping the modern age of sophistication. Over 100 athletes including five times gold medallist Carl Lewis to 200 metres men's winner Joe De Loach and 400 metres hurdles champion Andre Phillips since the 1985 Olympics are said to have taken some type of drugs, but allowed to compete on the grounds they were considered mild, according to documents released by athletic authorities since 2003, and 'Exum' and 'Orange County Newsletter'- two sports illustrated magazines. But the most sensational of all in recent times is Olympic super star, Marion Jones, winner of the women's 100 metres and 200 metres events being on the mat, and investigated for taking performance enhancing drugs. Jones, the American athlete had incidentally emerged as the queen of the short sprint track for her breathtaking dominance, but if it is all related to drugs, it will certainly be another holocaust to athletics. Thus, the Games journeys back to Athens, a far cry from its ancient beginnings. All grandeur for its tradition and cultural heritage but redressed and redefined by a new generation, yet for all that contaminated by the ills of commercialism. It is from such a yardstick that the new look gold, silver and bronze medals, re-designed by the 2004 Games Greek officials with historical value, comes up for grabs. The medals, as it is, will be fed by its ancient masters with the Greek culture with the image of the ancient statute of Nike carved in 421 BC and placed in the Temple of Zeus in Olympia. In effect, the Games, which journeys back to its birth place, will require athletes of the stature of Jesse Owens who set five world records at the 1935 Berlin Olympics, or a Muhammed Ali of the 1960's to rekindle a fast eroding values as far as winning potential goes where the Greeks by all accounts will find the far superior USA, Russia, Germany or China too much to match for a nation that breathed the Olympics. |
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