Old letters from our youth can trigger warm memories or nascent insecurities. Some should be published for their form and insightfulness. Others should be lost to eternity.
The Chinese government may have wished for the latter for one particular letter that has unveiled yet-another possible example of state-sponsored doping. Russia’s athletics team is banned from competing in the 2016 Rio Olympics, and Kenya’s team is under threat of ban. Now China is facing scrutiny over allegations that Ma Junren, the coach of China’s female middle- and long-distance runners, forced performance-enhancing drugs on his team of runners.
While the news broke in early February of this year, the source of the news was a letter written in 1995, signed by nine members of Ma Junren’s team. The women on this team, who also faced intolerable physical and verbal abuse from their coach, delivered the letter to an investigative reporter they respected, Zhao Yu. Nineteen years later, this letter was finally published in a book by Zhao Yu, unnoticed by the public, until a Chinese sports website called Sports.qq.com shared the letter this month. Here is part of that letter:
What we have told you about how Coach Ma verbally and physically abused us for years is true. It is also true that he tricked and forced us into using large quantities of banned drugs for years. We have a heavy heart and very complicated feelings in exposing him.
The person who is said to have written this letter is Wang Junxia, who was coached by Ma until 1995. Under Ma, Wang set records and won titles in marathons, 10ks, 3ks and 1500 meter races. In 1995, Wang and her teammates left their coach. In 1996, at the Atlanta Summer Games, Wang won gold in the inaugural women’s 5,000 meter race, as well as silver in the 10,000 meter competition.
Wang Junxia at the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta
And now, due to this recently publicized revelations, what Wang wrote in that letter 21 years ago may ring true: “We are concerned that our motherland’s reputation will be harmed, and we are also concerned about ‘how much gold’ there will be in our gold medals that were earned through blood and sweat.”
Rampling was definitely in the running – although nominated for the first time in her career, she has had a long and successful run as a model and actress.
Unfortunately, right after the Oscar nominations were announced, Rampling dropped the baton. In 2016, for the second year in a row, there were no nominees of color in the major acting categories. This prompted calls for a boycott of the Academy Awards. That in turn prompted Rampling to speak out on her own in a French talk show, saying that talk of boycotting the Academy Awards because no Blacks were nominated is “racist to whites.” She continued by saying, “One can never really know, but perhaps the black actors did not deserve to make the final list.”
Coincidentally (or perhaps ironically), Rampling’s father, Godfrey Rampling, competed in the Berlin Olympics in 1936 as a 400-meter sprinter. While finishing fourth in the individual men’s 400-meter competition, he and his team from Great Britain won the 4X400 relay finals, in good part due to Godfrey Rampling’s stunning burst to take the lead from Canada in the second leg, enabling Team GB to win gold.
Olympics – Britain’s Oldest Olympian Godfrey Rampling celebrates his 100th Birthday – Bushey House…A collect picture showing Godfrey Rampling (second left) competing in the 1936 Berlin Games. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Saturday May 15, 2009. Britain’s Oldest Olympian Godfrey Rampling celebrates his 100th birthday today with a party at Bushey House, Bushey. Photo credit should read: Anthony Devlin/PA Wire.These were of course the Olympics that pitted the position of Arayan superiority against all who were not of Arayan stock, a backdrop that reflected the spotlight on black American sprinter, Jesse Owens. And while I have no idea what thoughts Godfrey Rampling had on race, the thoughts of his daughter, Charlotte, dully echo those from Berlin…in my opinion.
Fortunately, (black) comedian Chris Rock was the host of the 2016 Academy Awards, and if anyone could respond to the Charlotte Ramplings of the world, it was Chris Rock. Here is a transcript of his opening monologue at the Oscars, which walks a fine line, attacks the extremes of the argument, and makes us laugh and think.
On Saturday, February 13, over 370 runners competed for a spot on the US Olympic marathon team. The USOC will send the top three finishers in the marathon race held in Los Angeles. It is considered a very American competition as the threshold was any American running a marathon in 2 hours and 45 minutes or less. As Amby Burfoot, an editor of Runner’s World said in this New York Times article, “Each of our runners must earn his or her bid for the Olympics — we tell them to line up, we’re going to shoot the gun, and you decide for yourself. It feels very American. One athlete, one vote.”
Apparently, other nations pick their marathoners through a committee of officials.
Move to a Different Country: Kosovo and South Sudan are entering the Olympics for the first time. You should look into their citizenship requirements and get in touch with their Olympic committees.
Identify an Easy Position: the article points out that being a coxswain in rowing events that require one has low barriers to entry. You need to be light and have a strong voice, with some sense of race tactics, but you don’t have to row. You just need to be strong enough to steer the shell. Apparently, China ran an American Idol-like competition in 2006, in which they tried to find two coxswains for the China teams at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
Jamaican bobsled team: Michael White, Dudley Stokes, Devon Harris and Frederick Powell
3. Enter a “Target Sport”: Shooting a rifle or an arrow apparently doesn’t require you to be in tip-top, high performance shape. You just need a steady set of arms and very good eyesight.
4. Start Your Own Team: The country you’re in may not naturally have athletes for a particular sport. Think the Jamaican bob sled team, or Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards in the ski jump – both of whom were the first to represent their nations in their sports at the Calgary Winter Games in 1988.
5. The Old-Fashioned Way: Identify what skills and physical attributes put you in the top percentile in your age group, and train, train, train.
Sunday, February 7 is Super Bowl Sunday – half of America will be watching the Carolina Panthers battle the Denver Broncos for supremacy at the 50th iteration of this quintessential American experience, while the other half will enjoy comfortable seating at movie theaters, as well as restaurants not showing the game.
As you are aware, American football, the version with the oval, rugby-like ball, is not an Olympic sport. So unlike basketball, or soccer or tennis or ice hockey, there are not so many Olympians who have played in the NFL, let alone win a Super Bowl.
Irvin Bo Roberson was the silver medalist at the 1960 Rome Games in the long jump, and had a distinguished career as a wide receiver for several NFL teams. In fact, he is the only person to be an Olympic medalist, an NFL player, an Ivy Leaguer and a PhD, but he never went to the Super Bowl.
The legendary Jim Thorpe, who was essentially brilliant at any sport he played, was the gold medalist for the pentathlon and the decathlon at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, and was actually the first president of the American Professional Football Association in 1922, so of course, never went to the Super Bowl.
In fact, there are only two people in the world who were Olympians, and who played in a Super Bowl.
Willie James Gault was on the US track and field team as a sprinter in 1980. Unfortunately, that was the year the US boycotted the Moscow Summer Games. Gault would go on to become a star wide receiver for the Chicago Bears and the Los Angeles Raiders, and was on the Bears team that won Super Bowl XX in 1986.
Bullet Bob Hayes won two gold medals in the 100 meter and 4×100 relay at the 1964 Tokyo Games, and had a hall of fame career as a wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys. In 1972, he became the first Olympian to win a Super Bowl, contributing with a 16-yard run and two catches for 23 yards in Super Bowl VI against the Miami Dolphons.
Michael D’Andrea Carter took the silver medal in the shot put at the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Games. He was then drafted by the San Francisco 49ers where he played one of the more violent positions on the field, nose tackle, better than anyone else in the game. And he played on a 49ers team that won the Super Bowl three times, in 1985, 1989 and 1990. Carter is only the second person to have won an Olympic medal and a Super Bowl ring ever, let alone in the same year.
They were tall and big. They were voracious eaters. They were cops. And they were Olympians.
The Irish Whales. You wouldn’t call them that to their faces because they were almost all over 6 feet tall, ranging in weight from 250 to 300 pounds…and they didn’t like the name. But they were achievers, winning well over 20 medals in Olympics between 1900 and 1924, dominating in the hammer throw, the discus throw, the shot put and what was common then, the 56lb weight throw.
The best-known members of the Irish-American Club were the so-called New York Whales. They were all Irish cops. I remember Pat McDonald. He weighed 350 pounds and won the shot put at Stockholm. For 30 years he was the traffic cop at 43rd Street and Broadway, right at Times Square. Matt McGrath was another of the Whales. He won the hammer throw in 1912 after coming in second in London in 1908. Ralph Rose was another but he was from out west someplace.
He was the biggest one of them all – six feet, seven inches or so. He won the shot put in 1908 and the two-handed shot put in 1912. He was the flag bearer in 1908 who refused to dip the flag in the opening ceremony when he passed by the British king. Rose weighed 365 pounds, a pound for each day. You know, those big Irishmen protected me, the only Jew in the Irish-American Club. I remember I had a little run-in with the discus thrower, Jim Duncan, on the boat going over to Stockholm. He was a fresh mutt, about 225 pounds and ugly looking. He started calling me names and annoying me, so Matt McGrath and Pat McDonald grabbed ahold of him and dragged him to a porthole and threatened to push him through if he called me any more names. And then they made me track captain.
It was on the Olympic trip of 1912 that the “whale” nickname took hold. Dan Ferris, then a cherubic little boy, recalls it with relish. “Those big fellows,” he related, “all sat at the same table and their waiter was a small chap. Before we reached Stockholm he had lost twenty pounds, worn down by bringing them food. Once as he passed me he muttered under his breath, ‘It’s whales they are, not men.’ They used to take five plates of soup as a starter and then gulp down three or four steaks with trimmings.
The Irish-American Club and the famous group of individuals known as the “Irish Whales” or “The New York Whales” were in some ways the story of America in the 19th and early 20th century. The Irish left Ireland for America and a better life, one in which they could break class and economic shackles and have an opportunity to achieve. Here is a historical description of the Irish Whales from TheIrishHistory.com.
The Irish Whales dominated the track and field, particularly throwing events, at the Olympics between 1896 and 1924 and their story touches on many issues that affected Irish-Americans in the late 19th and early 20th century; emigration, assimilation, national identity, antipathy towards England and Irish nationalism.
As Irish immigrants arrived in North America in the mid and late nineteenth century they brought with them a love of sport. Sports such as fishing, hunting and shooting were popular among the landed gentry but for the vast majority of Irish people athletic meetings at county fairs, fields and rural roads were the sporting activities of choice and attracted huge crowds and interest. Success in the sporting world was one way that immigrants could gain acceptance in the United States and by the end of the nineteenth century Irish Americans were dominating the sports of boxing and baseball. Victory in the sporting arena also meant socioeconomic advancement which was a powerful motivator for poor immigrants.
These are Emma Lazarus’ words etched on The Statue of Liberty in New York
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, he homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
They meant something powerful then. They still mean something today.
How do you clean up corruption when it is perceived that all parties are steeped in it?
According to this powerful opinion piece by Juliet Macur of the New York Times, better to go with the devil you know, than the devil you don’t.
She writes how the head of WADA (the World Anti-Doping Agency), Dick Pound, has consistently been blunt and hardline with regards to corruption in athletics, particularly as it relates to doping. (She cites in the article a hysterical quote from Pound about a famous cyclist’s testosterone levels as a case in point.) But for some reason, when it comes to the fate of IAAF leader, Sebastian Coe, Pound somehow found it in his heart to praise and support, not tear down. As Macur wrote, “What had WADA done with the real Dick Pound?”
Coe took gold in the 1500 meters in 1980 and 1984, was elected as an MP in the British Parliament, and has been a leader in the International Amateur Athletics Federation since 2007, recently becoming the head of the IAAF last August. To be honest, it’s a lousy time to be the head of the IAAF, which is under a dark cloud of suspicion.
Sebastian Coe wins gold in the 1500 meter race at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games
There are allegations of gifts made in exchange for awarding the 2019 world track and field championships to Doha, Qatar. There is the state-sponsored doping program in Russia that was conveniently ignored by the IAAF but eventually exposed by WADA, resulting in Russia’s track and field being banned from international competition, including the Rio Olympics in August. There is the suspected doping of Kenya’s runners, whose performance at the World Athletics Championships in Beijing last August was so superlative, they topped the medals tables for the first time ever.
And finally, there is Coe himself, who very reluctantly disassociated himself from his long-time paid association with Nike. The IAAF awarded the 2021 Athletics World Championships to Eugene, Oregon in the US, with apparently a formal bidding process. Oregon is definitely a hotbed for track, so Eugene’s selection is not a surprise. But Oregon is also the home to Nike. There’s no real indication that Nike, and thus Coe, had anything shady to do with the selection process. But taken all together, the IAAF is not currently a poster child for transparency and ethical decision making.
But as Macur explains, “It can be difficult to find purity at the top of international sports. In track and field, Coe, the former middle-distance star and Olympic champion, just might be the best option. He should serve his punishment for not speaking out against pervasive doping in track and field. His sentence: to clean up his dirty sport.”
Macur goes on to quote 5,000-meter runner and champion, Lauren Fleshmen as saying that Coe probably didn’t know all the corrupt things going on in the IAAF because of its
German Armin Hary (left) edges silver medalist David Sime third from left in the 100 meter finals at the Rome Olympic Games in 1960.
American David Sime, who lost to Germany Armin Hary in a photo finish in the 100 meters race at the 1960 Olympics, passed away on January 12. He was 79.
This obit in the New York Times is a good summary of his life, the championship runner who played baseball at Duke, and then opted to go to Duke University School of Medicine instead of playing for the Detroit Lions in the NFL.
I can’t get this image out of my mind. It seems so foreign to the spirit of athletic competition on the one hand, and yet it is as entwined in world-class competition as excellent coaches and dedicated training.
Doping.
The image I am referring to is a particular odious one, described in the book, The Dirtiest Race in History: Ben Johnson, Carl Lewis and the 1988 Olympic 100m Final, by Richard Moore. The Second World Athletics Championships were held in Rome, Italy in August 1987, a year prior to the 1988 Summer Olympic Games in Seoul Korea. Ben Johnson has set a world record in the 100 meters with a time of 9.83 seconds, beating rival Carl Lewis who also had a personal best of 9.93 seconds.
Moore related a story told by Doug Clement, a former Olympic middle-distance runner who was a coach and a doctor for the Canadian Olympic Association, and was at those World Athletics Championships in Rome.
The Stadio dei Marmi, Rome.
Next to the Olympic Stadium was one of Mussolini’s smaller excesses, the Stadio dei Marmi, the Stadium of the Marbles, filled with statues depicting athletes in classical poses, which during the championships was being used as a warm-up area. ‘Inside it was a catacomb-like area, lots of little rooms,’ recalls Clement. ‘They were dark and dingy, there were multiple caves. There were syringes everywhere. All over the floor. It was like a drug den.’
It was a drug den – and a metaphor for the sport. In the sunshine of the Stadio Olympico the triumphant championships were played out in front of 75,000 people; near by, in the shadows of the statues that adorned the Stadio dei Marmi, lay the dingy reality.”
A year later, Ben Johnson won the gold medal at the Seoul Olympic Games in 1988, only to have it stripped from him after testing positive for drugs in his system.
It’s not one of the biggest races in Japan, but it Is probably the oldest.
The Lucky Men Race has been held at Nishinomiya Shrine on January 10 since the Edo Period (1603~1868). As the clock strikes 6 AM, the gates of the shrine burst open as thousands of men pour through, hoping to be first to make it to the main hall and be crowned “fuku-otoko” (福男) the “Luckiest Man”.
Michinari Mizuta (center) Luckiest Man 2016As you can see in the video, it’s a mad dash, about 230 meters, as thousands of men run full throttle through the shinto shrine located in Hyogo, which is a prefecture in the Western part of Japan. The first three people to make it into the arms of shrine personnel at the end of the race are the winners, although the first place winner is the “lucky man”. This year, a 16-year-old high school student named Michinari Mizuta was crowned champion. This was the third attempt for Mizuta, and as they say, threes the charm.
And of course, I’m sure this story reminds you of my favorite Emerson, Lake and Palmer song – Lucky Man.
Roy, sometime between the Tokyo and Mexico City Olympic Games.
On this, the last day of 2015, I’d like to thank everyone for their support of my blog – The Olympians. I have posted at least once every day since I started the blog on May 1. Out of about 300 posts, I’ve selected 25 that I personally like, in good part because I’ve had the great fortune to talk with the people mentioned in these stories.
You must be logged in to post a comment.