Olympics
The 2020 Olympics in Tokyo will start this week with the opening ceremonies and torch lighting after being delayed a year due to Covid. This Olympiad will be the 19th of my lifetime, and other than the first few, I recall them all with mostly fond recollections. Beyond the opening and closing ceremonies, the track and field events were my favorites, especially the decathlon, 100 meter dash and the marathon. With gymnastics and swimming my wife’s favorites, that means for lots of enjoyable TV watching during the 17 day duration of the Olympics.
At age 12, I recall boxing legend, Muhammad Ali, known then as Cassius Clay at age 18, win the gold medal during the 1960 Olympics. However, rumor has it that after being refused service at a restaurant in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky because he was black, Ali threw his medal into the Ohio River. The boxer was presented a new medal after he lit the torch at the opening ceremony of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia.
Another favorite Olympic memory occurred during the 1968 Olympics when Dick Fosbury used a backwards layout-style jump, dubbed the Fosbury Flop, to win a gold medal and set an Olympic record. It is still the preferred high jump approach used by current competitors. Also in that same Olympics, Bob Beamon won the long jump gold metal, setting an Olympic record of 29’ 2 1/4" that still stands.
Bruce Jenner winning the decathlon during the 1976 Olympics in Montreal represents my most memorable moment. Must be for others as well since an unopened Wheaties box with Jenner gracing the cover has garnered $225 on eBay. That accomplishment has brought him much fame and fortune, but nothing compared to his gender change and his famous family.
Mark Spitz's seven gold medals in swimming were a highlight of the 1972 Olympics. Michael Phelps bested him in 2008 by taking home 8 gold medals, eventually setting an Olympic record in 2016 for the most decorated athlete of all time with 28 medals, 23 gold.
The marathon to close the Olympics is always a favorite event, with the winner running into the stadium as the closing ceremonies begin. The only American to win the event in recent history was Frank Shorter in 1972. Here's for a 3 minute video of the race that lasted over 2 hours and 12 minutes.
The marathon has ancient roots, but the foot race’s official length of 26.2 miles wasn’t established until the 20th century. The first organized marathon was held in Athens at the 1896 Olympics, the start of the Games’ modern era. The ancient games, which took place in Greece from around 776 B.C. to A.D. 393, never included such long-distance races. The idea for the modern marathon was inspired by the legend of an ancient Greek messenger who raced from the site of Marathon to Athens, a distance of about 40 kilometers, or nearly 25 miles, with the news of an important Greek victory over an invading army of Persians in 490 B.C. After making his announcement, the exhausted messenger collapsed and died. To commemorate his dramatic run, the distance of the 1896 Olympic marathon was set at 40 kilometers.
For the next few Olympics, the length of the marathon remained close to 25 miles, but at the 1908 Games in London the course was extended, allegedly to accommodate the British royal family. As the story goes, Queen Alexandra requested that the race start on the lawn of Windsor Castle (so the littlest royals could watch from the window of their nursery, according to some accounts) and finish in front of the royal box at the Olympic stadium—a distance that happened to be 26.2 miles (26 miles and 385 yards).
The random boost in mileage ending up sticking, and in 1921 the length for a marathon was formally standardized at 26.2 miles (42.195 kilometers).
Not all my Olympic memories are positive; for example, the protest on the podium by runners John Carlos and Tommie Smith raising black gloved fists during the 1968 track and field medal ceremony while the national anthem was being played. This incident became the forerunner of the present day protests by Colin Kaepernick and other athletes dissenting about racism in America.
Another appalling Olympic memory came during the 1972 Olympics in Munich when 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage by the Palestinian terrorist group Black September to protest Israel’s occupation of Palestine. All the hostages were killed by their captors during an attempted rescue raid by German police. Ironically, one of the dead was an Israeli wrestler by the name of Dave Berger, an Ohio native with dual citizenship who returned to his homeland to wrestle for Israel.
And another disappointing Olympic moment came in 1980 when the US boycotted the Moscow Olympics because the USSR had invaded Afghanistan the previous year.
Well before my time, probably the most famous Olympian of all time is Ohio State’s Jesse Owens for his 4 gold medals in the 1936 Olympics held in Berlin, Germany just before WWII. Owens won the 100 meters, long jump, 200 meters, and 4 × 100-meter relay and was the most successful athlete at the 1936 Games and, as a black man, was credited with "single-handedly crushing Hitler’s myth of Aryan supremacy" although he wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with President Roosevelt, either!
Enjoy the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Fish Report readers; it’s been a long time coming.
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