General George S. Patton: War Hero and Olympic Pentathlete

Patton1-620x519
General George S. Patton on the warfront.

I recently learned that one of the Olympians from the 1912 Summer Games in Stockholm, Sweden was General “Old Blood and Guts” George S. Patton – American military hero from World War II. As this wonderful Wired article relates, Patton put in a wonderful effort in the modern Olympics first modern pentathlon. The pentathlon is composed of shooting, swimming, fencing, horse riding and running – the concept being that the officer of that time might have to do all those kinds of things in order to get a message safely to its receiver in a time of war.

In 1912, Patton was a promising junior officer with a reputation for being dedicated, and a hard-driving leader. And despite Patton’s short time to prepare, he finished fifth in the pentathlon, behind four Swedes. Here are a few remarkable anecdotes related to one of the most well-known military leaders of the 20th century.

Patton had a bigger gun: Patton fired 20 bullets with a .38 caliber pistol, while his competitors were using .22 gauge pistols. When judges examined the paper target and saw only 17 holes, Patton claimed that all of his shots hit the target, but because of his higher gauge bullets, larger holes were found in the target. Patton claimed that the missing shots went through existing holes. The judges did not agree, and so he finished 20th, instead of first if he was to be believed.

patton-running-pentathlon-1912
Patton entering the stadium after his pentathlon run at the 1912 Stockholm Summer Games.

Patton was doped up: The final event of the pentathlon was the 4k race (about 2.5 miles), although it included a run through a thick forest and very muddy pathways. Patton, who had known for only two months that he was heading to Stockholm to represent the US in the pentathlon was not in the condition he would have preferred. But Patton was a ferocious competitor, training hard on the ship – SS Finland – from US to Europe, and then applying a level of energy and aggressiveness that could only be described as all out. In the 300-meter run, he simply swam to exhaustion, but took seventh. In the 4k run, the US trainer decided that Patton could use a little help with a bit of “hop”. That was the nickname for opium, a legal pick-me-up back in the day. Patton ran hard, ended up walking into the Stadium, crossing the finish line in third, and promptly passing out, for several hours.

Patton was an aggressive fencer, but not as aggressive as his wife: Patton approached fencing like he approached warfare – aggressively. In fact, Patton placed fourth in fencing, defeating the French fencer, Jean de Mas Latrie, who had lost only to Patton. As the Wired article quotes a Patton biographer, “Throughout his career, disdain for defense was a Patton trademark. To attack was to succeed, to defend was to invite defeat.” But in this passage from Michael Keane’s book, George S. Patton: Blood, Guts, and Prayer”, Patton was no match for his wife, who was preparing for the family’s move from France to the US, after Patton’s assignment to the École Militaire in Saumur, France.

George and Beatrice Patton
George and Beatrice Patton

As the family prepared to return to America, Beatrice was left to pack their belongings while George attended the fencing academy. The day before they departed, Patton casually remarked to his exhausted wife, “I hope you remembered to pack all those swords under the bed.” Walking into the bedroom, Beatrice discovered dozens of swords and scabbards of which she had been completely unaware. Frustrated that her husband had not appreciated her efforts or informed her of the swords he had been collecting, she angrily picked up one of the weapons and began chasing him around the house. A frantic Patton scurried over chairs and tables, pleading with his furious wife, “Don’t! Don’t! Please don’t!” Beatrice eventually brought the sword down on a table, missing her husband, but hard enough to embed the sword in the edge of the table. A newly compliant husband now offered to help his wife pack his collection.

Here is a clip from the movie, Patton, which has nothing to do with the Olympics, but is still fun to watch.

Continue reading →

Vacation Spots in Brazil: Top 7 Destinations

Amazon-Jungle
Travel information to the Amazon: 4 hour direct flight from Rio, followed by either a 3 hour car journey or a short sea plane flight to the lodge.

If you’re going to fly all the way to Brazil for the Rio Olympic Games next August, you might as well spend a little getaway time and explore the areas outside Rio de Janeiro. Here is a list of 7 great destinations in Brazil.

Iguassu-Falls
Travel information to Iguassu Falls: 2 hour direct flight from Rio, followed by a 25 minute transfer.
Continue reading →

The Olympic Hangover: London Legacy in Question

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

Continue reading →

Pierre de Coubertin: Founder of the Modern Olympiad and Gold Medalist in Literature

pierre-de-coubertin
Father of the Modern Olympics, Pierre de Frédy, baron de Coubertin

“The judges have been reading for hours, but it appears as if they are finishing up. Yes, they are now conversing with each other in hushed tones, peering over their notes, sometimes pointing animatedly at particular places on paper. Are they done? They appear to have completed their ruminations and discussion, and I must say, their body language cannot hide the fact that controversy seems to be in the air. Wait, one of the judges is raising the sign. There it is! The winner of the gold medal for Literature in the 1912 Olympic Games….is….George Hohrod and M. Eschbach for ‘Ode to Sport’!”

That’s right, in 1912 at the Stockholm, Sweden Olympics, medals were awarded in the areas of Architecture, Music, Painting, Sculpture and Literature. The father of the modern Olympic Games, Pierre de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin, had a deep-felt philosophy that sport could have a powerful influence on building character, and believed that the ancient Greeks had the right idea – that developing the intellect and the physical in tandem was a way to build better human beings and better societies.

 

1912 gold medal in sculpture
Walter Winans, An American Trotter, Gold Medal 1912 Olympic Art Competitions in Stockholm in the “Sculpture“ Category.

Barbara Goff provides greater detail into this ancient Greek philosophy in this fascinating essay entitled “Ode to Sport: Poetry and the Revived Olympics”:

At first sight we might think that sport and art are separated by a distinction as grave as that between mind and body, but while the ancient Greeks, at the head of what became the western tradition, did often fetishise that distinction, they also liked to collapse it.  At some level, they considered that orderly bodily motion in sport was linked to orderly song and dance, and that both were excellent ways of celebrating the human and thereby honouring the divine too. Both sports and arts could be part of festivals and celebrations, which were also religious events.  Poetry, or more precisely song, because most Greek poetry was initially delivered to a musical accompaniment, was connected to sport in other ways too; poetry rewarded athletic achievement, victorious athletes supported poetry, and both types of activity were subject to ferocious competition. 

Goff went on to reveal that the winners of the gold medal for literature was actually one person, that Hohrod and Eschbach were the names of villages near the birthplace of the wife of de Coubertin. In fact, it was de Coubertin himself who was the Olympic champion in literature. Goff was unable to learn whether the judges knew it was the founder of the Olympic Games who penned the poem, “Ode to Sport”.

Despite de Coubertin’s passion for making the Olympic Games a way to display all attributes of the so-called Chivalrous Athlete, the art competitions that started in 1912 would fade away in 1948. Goff again explains: “The artistic competitions at the revived Olympics never excited much real interest, and the International Olympic Committee dropped them after London 1948. Given that the arts competitions, unlike the sporting ones, were not very susceptible to cheating, drugs scandals, or, later on, television, they were never going to be as thrilling as the sports which did offer all these attractions. Instead, arts festivals started to accompany the Olympic Games, and by 1968 the cultural events were part of the Olympic Charter which Olympic host cities had to sign.”

For those who made it this far, here is a link to winners of the artistic Olympic competitions, as well as a link to the poem that won the only Olympic medal for literature – Ode to Sport.

1912 gold medal in painting
Carlo Pellegrini (ITA), Winter Sports, Gold Medal Winner in the “Painting” Category of the 1912 Stockholm Olympic Art Competitions.
Continue reading →

Weightlifter Yoshinobu Miyake: Taking the Frog Style to Perfection at the 1964 Tokyo Games

Yoshinobu_Miyake_and_Isaac_Berger_1964
Yoshinobu Miyake and Isaac Berger (right) at the 1964 Olympic

Hiromi Miyake recently won the women’s 48-kg bronze medal at the weightlifting world championships in Houston, Texas. The silver medalist from the London Games in 2012 is the daughter of Yoshiyuki Miyake, who won a bronze medal at the Mexico City Olympic Games.

It is Hiromi’s uncle, Yoshinobu Miyake, who started the family dynasty. Yoshinobu won silver in Rome in the 56 kg bantam weight class, and then took gold in both Tokyo and Mexico City at the 60kg featherweight class.

In 1964, when the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc dominated weightlifting, taking 15 of a possible 21 medals, Yoshinobu Miyake was the sole champion outside that Communist bloc. Miyake was so dominant that he was the only gold medalist weightlifter out of seven weight classes not to fail a lift. In other words, his competitors didn’t come close to pushing Miyake.

Yoshinobu Miyake had a technique named after him, like the “Ali Shuffle” or the “Fosbury Flop”. In fact, there were two names for that technique: the “Miyake Pull”, or more famously, “Frog Style”. When the 1.5 meter (5 foot 1 inch) man from Miyagi, Japan settled in front of his weights, his heels would sit close together, with his knees spread and toes pointed outwards at a 60 degree angle – as the picture below shows, he is said to resemble a frog. This frog style helped Miyake set 25 world records, reigning as the champ through much of the 1960s.

Miyake Pull

But Miyake worked at his technique. As a member of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, making some 12,000 yen (then $33) a month, he borrowed 80,000 yen (then $240) to buy a movie camera to film himself lifting, leading to a perfection of his technique, and eventually Olympic glory.

You can watch the frog style technique in this short video. You can see Miyake lifting at 18 second mark.

Continue reading →

Target of 16 Gold Medals for Japan in 2020: Realistic or Underwhelming?

endo_yukio_3
Japanese gymnast, Yukio Endo celebrates his gold medal victory in the parallel bars in 1964, with teammate Shuji Tsurumi, who won silver, in an era when the Japanese ruled in men’s gymnastics.

 

Officials in Japan are aiming for 16 gold medals at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

“Medals will encourage athletes,” Olympics minister Toshiaki Endo was quoted as saying in this November 27 Japan Times article. “It will be better to have a goal, so that the state can support (those who would be able to) offer hopes and dreams to children.”

Fifty-six years ago, on the eve of the start of the 1964 Summer Games in Tokyo, Kenkichi Oshima, head of the Japanese Olympic delegation, said basically the same thing, stating that Japan must win at least 15 gold medals as “an encouragement to this country’s upcoming generation.”

The Japanese team pulled in 16 gold medals in 1964, with the third highest medal haul in those games. It is common for the host country to do well in the medals race, but the Japanese team continued its success vis-a-vis other countries through the early 1980s, as you can see in this table.

Japan Medal Table.PNG

But as the number of countries rose, as did the level of competitiveness, Japan began to slip in the medal rankings between 1988 and 2000. With a renewed effort, Japan matched its 16 gold medals in Athens, and more recently in London grabbed 38 overall medals, more than it had ever done before.

Over the years, judo, gymnastics and wrestling have been Japan’s strongest competitive advantages, with assists from weightlifting and archery, but in recent years, Japan has become a power in swimming.

Is a target of 16 gold medals in 2020 reasonable for the third largest economy in the world? Rio in 2016 will give us a clue.

Continue reading →

Dr Strangelove and The Fall of 1964: A Time for Olympic Achievement and Global Anxiety

Peter Sellers in Dr Strangelove
Peter Sellers as Captain Mandrake, President Muffley and Dr Strangelove.
It was October, 1962, and Michael Dobbs wrote in his thrilling description of the Cuban Missile Crisis in his book “One Minute to Midnight“, how close the world came to mutually assured destruction.

Like Bobby, the president was now learning toward a blockade after initially favoring an air strike. His mind was still not completely made up, however. Blockade seemed the safer course, but it too carried huge risks, including a confrontation between the US and Soviet navies. After the meeting was over, he took Bobby (Kennedy) and Ted Sorenson out to the Truman Balcony of the White House, looking over the Washington Monument. “We are very, very close to war,” he told them gravely, before deflating the moment with his mordant Irish wit. “And there is not room in the White House shelter for all of us.”

The early 1960s was a time under dark clouds, threatening to become nuclear. In 1964, incumbent President Lyndon Johnson used this horrific television ad to scare people from voting for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater by suggesting that he would take us all the way to nuclear disaster. (It may have worked.)

It was in this cultural milieu that director Stanley Kubrick directed Dr Strangelove, a bizarre and critically acclaimed film about a US General who orders the launch of nuclear missiles on the Soviet Union, and the US government’s debate and attempts to bring the bombers back, and thus prevent a nuclear war.

On October 9, 1964, a day before the opening ceremonies of the Tokyo Summer Games, and 8 days before China shocked the world by test exploding its first Atomic bomb, The Japan Times published a review of Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. The reviewer, Mary Evans, wrote, “Though the title is long, it couldn’t be more compact. In it are allusions to the obsessions of our times and to the only escape possible – intelligent detachment. The film is brilliant, mocking, incisive, funny, horrifying. Because it is so intelligent and honest, it is also reassuring.”

George C Scott, who would go on to win an Academy Award portraying WWII hero, General George Patton, portrayed another military leader named General Buck Turgidson. But it is the amazing actor, Peter Sellers, who played three major characters in the film, Captain Lionel Mandrake, President Merkin Muffley, and Dr. Strangelove. Here is a clip about the so-called “Doomsday Machine”, featuring President Muffley and Dr Strangelove.

Continue reading →

Hanyu smashes two more world records en route to amazing NHK Trophy triumph | The Japan Times

Just when you thought he couldn’t get any better, Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu gave a performance for the ages on Saturday night. For the second night in a row, Hanyu established a new world record on the way to victory at the NHK Trophy. Not just one, but two.

Source: Hanyu smashes two more world records en route to amazing NHK Trophy triumph | The Japan Times

Continue reading →

Sani Brown: The 2015 IAAF Rising Star Award Recipient (No, he doesn’t look Japanese.)

Sani Brown IAAF Junior Worlds
Abdul Hakim Sani Brown. Photo by Kaz Magatsuka

As the Japan Times reported on November 27, Abdul Hakim Sani Brown became the first Japanese to win the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF) Rising Star Award.

That’s right – a Japanese named Sani Brown. The son of a father from Ghana and a mother from Japan, Brown is a 16-year sprinter who was the fastest in the 100 and 200 meter races at the IAAF World Junior Championship in Cali, Colombia this past July. Not only that, his 20.34 seconds in the 200 broke the championship record previously held by Usain Bolt!

Watch Brown, who was favored a few days after winning the 100 meters, break Bolt’s Junior Championship record in convincing fashion.

Japan is easily one of the most homogeneous societies in the world, with well over 98% of the 126 million citizens of Japanese ethnicity. Those of mixed race have had mixed receptions in Japan. So-called “Hāfu” (a Japanese word that intimates that half of your parents are Japanese) are becoming more and more accepted in society as celebrity mixed race Japanese fill the air waves and print space.

Sani Brown 2
Sani Brown is a one of  growing number of biracial Japanese athletes. Photo from KYODO.

Star pitcher for the Texas Rangers, Yu Darvish, has an Iranian father. Popular television personality, Becky, has a British father. And the father of current Miss Universe Japan, Ariana Miayamoto, is African-American. With international marriages in Japan increasing five-fold since 1965, it’s no surprise that the children of these couples would rise in number, and continuously challenge what it means to be a Japanese.

As Miyamoto expressed in this New York Times interview, she is up for the challenge. My guess is that Sani Brown is as well.

“Even today, I am usually seen not as a Japanese but as a foreigner. At restaurants, people give me an English menu and praise me for being able to eat with chopsticks,” said Ms. Miyamoto, who spoke in her native Japanese and is an accomplished calligrapher of Japanese-Chinese characters. “I want to challenge the definition of being Japanese.”

Continue reading →