Stadion St Moritz, home of the 1928 and 1948 Winter Olympics – Top – 1928, Bottom – Present Day
He was 13 years old and was visiting the site of the 1928 and 1948 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland, as he did every winter as a child. An Olympian from those 1948 Games happened to be there, under whose tutelage Rolf Sachs had his first opportunity to go careening down the icy corridor of the bobsleigh track.
Sachs, a renown Swiss artist and designer, would continue to visit St. Moritz in the winters into his adulthood and would always see a large pink building, abandoned, built for the 1928 Olympics. And while many saw the empty pink structure as perhaps an unwanted feature of the snow white background of the winter playground, Sachs envisioned a fascinating place to reside.
According to this short film by Matthew Donaldson, Sachs asked if he could buy and convert the Stadion St Moritz, and was essentially told “yes” if he could get through the paperwork. In addition to renovating the building into a winter home, he continued to build the only natural bobsleigh course in the world.
Sachs, whose father’s influence made him a purveyor and creator of art, believes his bobsleigh course is also the biggest art sculpture in the world. Not only that, superior to all other bob sleigh courses, this one has no negative environment impact.
“It’s fantastic to see that it was the first bob run and the last one that is still natural,” Sachs says in the film. “If I imagine the environmental impact of an artificial bob run, not only to run it, but to see in the summer these huge concrete walls, it’s really a joy to see how they built this in three weeks, and at the end of the season, it just melts away.”
In August, American Olympic shooters, some preparing for the 2016 Rio Olympics, filed a grievance with the USOC against the national governing organization for shooting, U.S.A. Shooting. In October, U.S.A. Shooting slapped a lawsuit against the athletes, locking the two sides in a Mexican Standoff.
(USA Shooting) Federation leaders are inept at raising money and promoting the sport.
Minutes of meetings of the board and executive committee, and meaningful financial information, are not posted on the federation website.
There is insufficient oversight of auditing, ethical conduct and financial compensation.
1964 Tokyo Olympics gold medalist, Gary Anderson, current board member of the U.S.A. Shooting organization, from the book, ’64 Tokyo Olympics_Asahi Shimbun
It is not the first time that athletes and their governing bodies have battled in the US. Significant conflict has arisen in the worlds of gymnastics, wrestling and even at the higher levels of the AAU and NCAA. The over-riding issue is whether leaders of a governing body should stay in power indefinitely if their constituents find reason to believe that their interests as athletes are not paramount in the decisions of the governing body.
Apparently, the current U.S.A. Shooting executive director, Robert Mitchell, continued his tenure in a hotly contested board election in March.
“I wish I could say I was surprised, USAS seems to have no transparency at all in its leadership. I’ve no idea how they are elected…and have been a member for over five years.”
“Boards are meant to oversee an organization . . . why is the CEO sitting on the board? There are term limits in the by-laws, but they are not followed. Another board member has been on the board for 20 years without the required two year break. Shame on these 3 members of the executive committee – our athletes should be focused on the Olympics, not legal proceedings.”
“Sad. Another classic example of an organization that starts out with the best of intentions and then ultimately takes on a life of its own instead of focusing on the reason for its existence in the first place.”
“I also personally find it despicable that at least three of the board members/ top officials with USA shooting have decided to spend donations to USA shooting to sue their own athletes and other board members, to try and intimidate them into dropping their grievance.”
“I always figured that ANY organization or business like USA Shooting needs some continual change in management to get fresh ideas and keep things advancing. It also seems like the Shooting sports have been languishing or diminishing for decades now..”
The dispute continues. But at least, the two sides settled on a process – the formation of a Blue Ribbon Panel to Resolve USA Shooting’s grievances. The 7-member panel will be representatives from both U.S.A. Shooting and the athletes, including executive director Mitchell. The panel has been asked to “conduct an extensive review of USA Shooting’s Bylaws and relevant policies, ensuring the sport’s governance meets or exceeds universally agreed-upon best practices and enables USA Shooting to support its mission of preparing elite athletes for success and of growing the sport. ”
The lawsuit, apparently, still stands. And the standoff continues, but the panel is a possible step towards reconciliation.
“The optimist in me sees this as a necessary step in the right direction,” wrote a Target Talk member. “Time will tell. I think this is a de-escalation in hostilities, and a move towards USAS becoming compliant with USOC and Amateur Sports Act requirements.”
Olympic boxers are now banned from wearing protective headgear….in order to protect them from concussions.
Say what?
According to this article, the International Boxing Association (AIBA) enacted a rule that disallows “elite male boxers who compete internationally” from wearing headgear because “all available data indicated that the removal of headgear in Elite Men would result in a decreased number of concussions.”
Then I recalled a fascinating Freakanomics podcast, the renown show that features the writer Stephen J. Dubner and the economist Steven Levitt. This particular podcast was entitled “The Dangers of Safety“, and it essentially made the same case, citing the NFL as a case in point. Here’s an exchange between Robert Cantu, a professor of neurosurgery at Boston University, and Dubner explaining how the football helmet actually increases risk of injury.
Cantu: The way, for instance, in football in my opinion that we’re going to have to address this problem, is to eliminate the helmet as the initial point of contact in the act of tackling and even to a certain extent in blocking as well. Quite frankly, when people didn’t have the helmets of the security that there are today, didn’t have the face mask, and you had to worry about your nose winding up in your ear, from using your face in a tackle, you didn’t use your face, obviously.
Dubner: So as the safety equipment gets better, our behavior becomes more aggressive?
Cantu: Absolutely. Very much more aggressive, very much more violent. We’ve seen the same thing happen in ice hockey, as well. When you put face and head protection on people they’re not as worried about taking blows to that area. And so the aggressive nature of the activity is greatly enhanced.
The economist Levitt even had a name for it – The Peltzman Effect, named after Sam Peltzman. “…it’s the idea that you can put in a safety device and people can then feel so much safer in the activity they’re engaging in, that they take more and more risk, to the point where you actually have the opposite effect, that by putting in the safety device, you actually lead to more people being hurt or killed. And the classic example people talk about is seatbelts in cars. And the idea would be without a seatbelt, you feel at risk, and with a seat belt you drive with a much more dangerous fashion, and that could lead to more deaths.”
So, does the Peltzman Effect in reverse come into play with AIBA’s decision? When boxers don’t wear protective headgear, are there fewer concussions as a consequence? The jury is still out. But there has been one unintended consequence – the number of cuts and incidences of bleeding has jumped significantly according to this article. Boxers who had always worn headgear now have to deal with facial cuts so bad they’re forced out of tournaments.
The problems of cuts has become such a concern that AIBA actually reconsidered the rule in 2014, but decided in the end to uphold the ban. So at the Rio Olympics next year, boxers for the first time in decades will not wear headgear…for their safety…or maybe…because it makes for better television viewing.
Brody Blair of Canada during his men’s middleweight fight against Benny Muziyo of Zambia at the Commonwealth Games.
Bob Schul winning the gold medal in the 5000 meters in Tokyo_Life Magazine, October 30, 1964
Bob Schul was in a room under the National Olympic Stadium, mentally preparing himself for the race of his life, the 5,000 meter competition at the 1964 Tokyo Summer Games. Schul was already filling a little uneasy. It was rainy and cold, so he spent most of his time in his dorm. Then he walked 200 meters in the rain, got on the bus and made it to the stadium, where his coaches ran up to him saying, “Where have you been?” Schul told me that his adrenalin shot up, and he thought he had gotten the time wrong. But they told Schul there was still over an hour before the race, which is exactly how much time he had intended to have. So calming himself down, Schul headed to a small room to prepare himself for his race. A member of the US track team and gold medal hope, Willie Davenport walked into the room.
“Willie Davenport, one of the world’s best hurdlers, was standing in the middle of the room dripping wet,” said Schul. “I knew he had just finished one of his trials. The first race for the US hurdlers should have been a cake walk for them. As I walked by and patted him on the back, I asked him how it went. His response was not what I had expected. He turned towards me and looked at me in the eyes and said, ‘Bob, I didn’t make it.’ Now, when somebody says that sort of thing, you don’t want to be there. I had a race to win and I didn’t want anybody saying to me ‘I didn’t make it’. But I couldn’t get away because he kept talking. I thought, ‘come on, I got to get out of here.’ Tears were coming down and he turned away. What do you say? I stood there and reached out and put my hand on his shoulder. I put my bag against the wall, and went to warm up. I tried to forget that.”
Fortunately, Schul was unaffected, winning the first ever gold for the US in the 5,000 meters. Davenport would recover after being eliminated in the 110m hurdle semis in Tokyo, going on to win gold in Mexico City, and bronze eight years later in Montreal.
The acclaimed author, Frank Herbert, once wrote, “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.” Herbert’s mantra is particularly true for high performance athletes. The anonymous author who wrote the book, The Secret Olympian: The Inside Story of the Olympic Experience, also spoke of fear, its particular odor and its negative impact.
Kyle MacLachlan as Paul Atreides in the 1984 miniseries, Dune.
“The physiologists can’t measure our sanity. Some of us are going well in training, quick and confident. Probably an equal number are struggling, working harder than they should to make the pace, and it’s those guys (some are friends, some rivals) who are starting to crack up. I can sort of smell this creeping fear of failure, an aura or a vibe around them. It’s like an elephant in the room. No one wants to talk about it. Some have gone very quiet; others are sort of manic. I can tell my best mate has been crying in the loos after training and back in the hotel sometimes. Not good for a grown man.”
The author, Anon, writes that everybody feels the fear. But you need to
Lt Billy Mills of the US Marines and his winning smile on I’ve Got a Secret.
Five months after the Tokyo Olympic Games in 1964, four lieutenants from four different branches of the US Military came together as anonymous guests on the game show, “I’ve Got a Secret”. The popular program that broadcasted on American network CBS from 1952 to 1967 in black and white was the less formal, loosey-goosey version of another very popular game show, “What’s My Line?” (See this link for my post on 5-gold-medalist Don Schollander appearing on that program.)
Steve Allen was hosting that show on March 8, 1965, and guest celebrities asked questions to guess what the secret was, ie: who the heck these four military men did. And the guest celebrities – Jayne Meadows, Gary Morton, Betsy Palmer and Henry Morgan – did not have a clue, although they did tend to get, I believe, a bit racy in their questioning.
The four military men were:
First Lt Lones Wigger of the Army who had set a world record in the small-bore rifle, 22-caliber, three position event at the Asaka Shooting Range in Tokorozawa, Saitama
First Lt Joe Amlong of the Air Force who were two members of the US 8-oar rowing crew which beat heavy favorite Germany on the Toda Rowing Course in Saitama
Lt Billy Mills of the Marines, the first American to win the 10000 meters in the Olympics
Here are the four American Military gold medalists in this 7-minute segment from “I’ve Got a Secret”.
We’re only 8 months away from the launch of Olympiad XXXI. Olympic infrastructure plans are generally on time. Brazilians are generally excited. But the economy is taking a distinct dive.
Unemployment at nearly 10%, despite all of the Olympic-related construction, is the highest it has been in six years, when Rio was awarded the Olympics. Inflation is around 10%. The real has devalued by a third. Brazil’s credit rating dropped to “junk” status in September. And while international athletes will be flowing into Brazil next year, international investment has been flowing out of Brazil. This, as well as the plummeting price of oil in this petro-economy, have contributed heavily to the shrinking of the Brazilian economy again this quarter, the ninth quarter in a row.
The once booming member of the so-called BRIC economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China) is experiencing one of its worst economic crises in a while. How is this impacting the upcoming Olympics? There was a brief social media uproar when Rio Olympic officials announced the need to cut 30% of their budget, including air conditioning in the rooms of the Olympic Village, a decision that was quickly reversed after athletes balked.
It’s unclear what those cuts will impact, but big issues continue to concern…issues that will cost the country not only in expense but also in emotional well-being.
In addition to security in the areas of the Olympic activities, security along Brazil’s massive borders is a “big concern”, as a government auditor revealed “flaws” in the plans to control the 17,000 kilometer border that runs through remotes part of the Amazon and touches 10 other countries in Latin America.
The Associated Press has continued to test the waters planned for Olympic events and have found that “high viral and in some cases bacterial counts are found not just along shorelines where raw sewage runs in, but far offshore where athletes will compete in sailing, rowing and canoeing.” According to this AP article, Rio won the Olympic bid with a promise to clean up the city’s waterways, but “Brazilian officials now acknowledge that won’t happen.”
Guanabara Bay
On top of that, unprecedented levels of corruption in the government-
First we take you to Bangkok, Thailand, my residence from 1994-2004, where Standard Chartered Bank hosted the annual Bangkok Marathon on November 15. As a part of the day’s event, a half marathon is held. Now for most of the world, half of the 42 kilometer marathon should come to 21 kilometers. And yet, as runners approached their expected times for 21 kilometers, they were surprised to see how far they were from the finish line, and disappointed at how slow their times were. As it turned out, the organizers had extended the length of the course a bit…if 7 extra kilometers is a bit….due to incorrectly informing runners where to make their u-turn. Unlike Singapore Math, Thailand Math won’t be coming to a neighborhood near you any time soon.
Brian Land had previously run a 1:20 half marathon in the Santa suit. Photograph by Island Photography
Next we take you the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, my residence from 1981-1985, where a Guinness World Record was broken at the Philadelphia Marathon on November22. Brian Land, 29, a miler who raced at my alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, decided to run the Philly Marathon….in a Santa Claus suit. Having run a marathon in 2 hours and 31 minutes, he was seeking to break the record of faux Santa Claus, Paul Simons, who set the then record at the 2009 London Marathon with a time of just under 2 hours and 56 minutes. Training in full Santa regalia at Planet Fitness in early November, and running a half-marathon in the suit, Land was confident. So when Santa Claus came to town for the marathon, he did so in the record time of 2 hours, 54 minutes and 2 seconds.
Astronaut Tim Peake
And finally, we take you to outer space, overlooking the planet earth, my home planet since 1963, where British astronaut, Tim Peake, plans to run the London Marathon on April 24, 2016. Yes, he’ll technically be in space on the International Space Station, and yes, he’ll be running on a treadmill alone while the other 37,000 run the roads of London. Peake will be tethered to the treadmill so he won’t float away, and will watch a video of the London course as he runs. Apparently, Peake isn’t the first to do so. NASA astronaut, Sunita Williams, also ran a marathon in space in 1997 racing in synch with the Boston Marathon that year. And yet, Peake’s goal is amazing. As he quipped, The London Marathon is a worldwide event. Let’s take it out of this world.”
John Lennon and Yoko OnoToday in Japan, it is December 9, but in the US, it is still December 8, the day John Lennon was murdered, the day the music died.
On the closing day of the Munich Olympics in 1972, the torch was extinguished, the lingering waves of joy of Olympic competition and camaraderie merging with countervailing waves of sadness. Eleven Israeli athletes had been killed by the hand of terrorists. According to the book, Secret Olympian: The Inside Story of the Olympic Experience, athletes left the closing ceremony and gathered in the Olympic Village. And as the athletes struggled with their mixed and roiling emotions, a song by John Lennon unified them all.
At the John Lennon memorial event at Central Park on December 14, 1980_photo taken by Roy TomizawaFollowing the closing ceremony, the athletes returned to the Village and converged on the discotheque. John Lennon’s ‘Give Peace a Chance’ was played several times with its poignant relevance. Fencer Susie Murphy’s overriding memory of Munich was a touchingly united scene with athletes of all nations singing along to Lennon in one unified voice, arms round each other’s shoulders, in defiance of the atrocity.
His request was straightforward. Mohammed Al-Khatib of the State of Palestine needed funds to train in the United States so that he could represent his homeland in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The yoga and fitness instructor from Hebron has a dream – to win an Olympic medal in the 100 meters or 200 meters competition “on behalf of every Palestinian.”
As he explains in the request video below, understandably, Palestine lacks the facilities and the professional coaches all athletes need to advance to a world-class level.
But despite that, Al-Khatib has nurtured this dream of representing Palestine in Rio for the past three years, training hard after being encouraged by a US track and field coach, Crystal Dunlap, who saw him run a 10.4 second 100 meters without spikes or starting blocks. Coaches and role models are so important. In fact, Al-Khatib was inspired by two people, as he explains here: a 15-year-old Lithuanian swimmer named Ruta Meilutyte who won gold in London in 2012, as well as a Palestinian named Mohammad Assaf who won a singing contest in Arab Idol. Learn more in this great profile of Al-Khatib here
Palestinian yoga and fitness instructor Mohamed al-Khatib trains for track and field events in the hopes of attending the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, Nov. 18, 2015 | Ash Gallagher
Al-Khatib wanted to raise $7,850 so that he could participate in a 3-month training camp in Texas from January. In only 4 days, he reached $12,160! So yes, Al-Khatib is on his way to Texas!
The Olympic Games – pomp and circumstance, tense competition, tears of sadness and joy on display globally – after years of build up, come to an end after two weeks of sound and fury. Then often comes the praise from all corners of the world, the follow-up stories, the speech circuit, the documentaries, and finally, one realizes that one hasn’t uttered the word “Olympics” for quite a while. Until, the grumbling begins.
Almost inevitably, there is a backlash of some sort, people criticizing the expense of the Olympic Games, the lack of promised economic impact on local commerce, and the use of tax money for expensive athletic facilities that very quickly begin to rot from lack of use and maintenance. See this blog post for images of Olympic boondoggles.
A few weeks ago, a German broadcaster released this documentary called “Die andere Seite von Olympia”, or “The Other Side of the Olympics”. This piece by Marlene Wynants is a series of interviews of Londoners who feel the London Games did not deliver on its promises. Here are some of the opening quotes from the documentary:
The expectations of restaurants, bars, theaters, that we would have a bumper summer.
Why should we stand aside for the elite sportsmen when we were the grassroots of the national game.
In the beginning, when they were trying to get everyone behind them, they promised the earth.
They created the hype, and they are the ones making the money, not the ordinary people.
Ultimately the costs are borne by the host city, the host national government, and the IOC isn’t liable for any of them.
There are a lot of people getting fed up with the Olympics, the impact that it has, and the lies that are told. And London is a prime example of lying from beginning to end.
And as explained in this article from The Guardian, government funding for sports will no longer be prioritized. Only a few years after the London Games in 2012, the budget for grassroot sports will be cut as much as 40% over the next five years.
I love the Olympic Games. But there is little doubt that the financial burden on country and city governments, as well as on the citizens and
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