Unit7ThereHasAlwaysBeenOlympicMischief[共3頁]

1、Unit 7 There Has Always Been Olympic MischiefErich SegalEvery four years, when the Olympics roll around again, journalists seem automatically to recycle those misty-eyed notions about “Good Old Days.” They eulogize the original Greek Games as being pure and uncommercial. If we believe what we read,

2、every ancient competitor was an amateur, and all worshipped fair play.This is, of course, sheer nonsense. As Lord Byron quipped: “All times when old are good.” In fact, the mythology of a perfect Olympics is the modern invention of snobs and self-styled purists, perpetuated by sports writers and tel

3、evision commentators at a loss to fill air time. Here is the not-so-rosy truth. From as far back as Homers Iliad which portrays games of the 12th century B.C. Greek athletes cheated as a matter of course. Their entire ethic was based on winning by fair means or foul. Olympic boxers hit where they we

4、rent supposed to, and took bribes to take dives.Runners jumped the gun (to be precise, the Greeks used a trumpet), and they elbowed one another viciously on the curves.The chariot racers were even more brutal, especially in the Games held under the Roman Empire. We have recorded cases of drivers sta

5、bbing rivals as their vehicles drove neck to neck. Perhaps most amazing of all, if it were later proved that, say, a boxer or a wrestler had dishonestly won through bribery he still didnt lose his title.Perhaps you are asking where the judges were. Oh, the Greeks had the usual referees, umpires, and

6、 so forth. But these arbiters were often susceptible to financial enticements and treats. And even if an honest judge was stationed at the turning post that the runners had to circle, he still had great difficulty in determining whose elbow was smashing into whose ribs, because the athletes didnt we

7、ar numbers. For that matter, they didnt wear uniforms either. Indeed, one real difference between the ancient and modern games was the fact that all the Greek athletes were obliged to compete in the nude.You might think that this bareness would have made it impossible to commercialize the ancient Ga

8、mes. After all, the stars couldnt be paid to wear anybodys track shoes or sweat shirts. That much is true, but we would be naive to think that the athletes were therefore “amateurs.” Then, as now, the Olympics meant big bucks (sorry, drachmas) for the champions. According to a recent book by Profess

9、or David Young of the University of California at Santa Barbara, the winner of the sprint could, in fact, expect to earn the ancient equivalent of several hundred thousand dollars!To begin with, there was the actual prize money. From at least the sixth century B.C. the Greeks openly gave cash awards

10、 for first place in the Olympics. After that there were huge fees that these newly crowned champions could demand for “personal appearances.” No, I am not being anachronistic. Promoters of minor track meets which were often held to advertise local products (!) would fork over plenty to have the hott

11、est runners of the day merely show up. Whats more, the athletes were generally absolved by their home town from paying taxes and were given free meals for life.Thus, even in classical times, the Olympics were a highly commercial affair. And they were also highly political. There were ferocious rival

12、ries among the various city-states, both from the mainland and the various Greek colonies, to have one of their own win a big title.I am not afraid to name names. The greatest sprinter in antiquity was a certain Astylos, who hailed from Crotona, a tiny Greek village in Italy. At the Games of 488 B.C

13、. he dazzled all by winning both sprint events. Afterwards, Astylos was approached by some boys from Syracuse, then a rich and growing city in Sicily, who made him an offer he couldnt refuse. They suggested that he change citizenship so he could run for their citys team in the next Olympics. The pri

14、ce was right. And the deal paid off. In the Games of both 484 and 480, he repeated his amazing double. But he entered the record books as Astylos of Syracuse. Which proves that money can buy anything, including Olympic champions.Lest I besmirch the name of a great athlete, let me hasten to say that

15、I do not imply that Astylos really cheated. He simply accepted a lot of cash to move to a bigger base of operations. It happens all the time today with corporate executives.Let us conclude this iconoclastic survey of ancient misbehavior with two rather bizarre anecdotes. According to the authority o

16、f the great historian Plutarch, King Mithridates of Pontus (first century B.C.) poisoned the rival charioteer who dared to beat him in a race. And finally there was the multitalented emperor Nero. In A.D. 67, he had the officials hold a special Games at Olympia in his honor. He lasted about twenty y

17、ards and fell off his chariot. But he was nonetheless declared the winner. In this instance, the judges were not bribed. They were simply scared.When the Games were revived in 1896, all the ancient shenanigans were revived with them. And as time progressed, refinements were added. It almost goes wit

18、hout saying that the Greeks overwhelmed their countryman Spiridon Loues, the winner of the marathon, with numerous tangible rewards. (Some accounts say female spectators threw their jewels down to him on the track.)But let us quickly say he won fair and square. And yet when he crossed the finish lin

19、e, he was a little “high” on more than joy having fortified himself along the road with swigs of sugared wine.By contrast, the first marathoner to reach the stadium in the St. Louis Olympics in 1904 was one Fred Lorz of the United States. Just before President Teddy Roosevelts daughter was to give h

20、im his medal, it was discovered that Lorz had not, after all, gone the entire distance under his own steam. Having cramped up at about nine miles, he accepted a ride from a passing car. But the auto also cramped up a little later, and Lorz jumped out and jogged the rest of the way to the stadium, ar

21、riving well before the other racers. This “victory” is one of the lighter moments in the history of Olympic cheating.More ominous is the fact that distance runners very quickly began taking stimulants. Strychnine was one of the earliest drugs used for this purpose. Indeed, T. J. Hicks, the athlete w

22、ho actually got the marathon gold medal after Lorz was disqualified, had sustained himself en route with large quantities of brandy and small doses of strychnine. Though his physician was not secretive about it, Hicks got to keep his medal. Of course there were no drug tests for Olympic athletes in

23、the early years of our century. Strychnine was again used by the runners in the 1908 London games during the famous marathon in which the Italian Dorando Pietri reached the stadium first and collapsed before he got to the tape. This time one of the official doctors rushed over to give him a quick in

24、jection to help him finish. But the shot nearly finished Dorando, and he had to be taken to the hospital after being disqualified for not completing the race on his own.Since then, doctors have been hard at work trying to invent substances that would improve performance while escaping detection. Thi

25、s medical research may have helped performances but it has often harmed athletes. Tragic cases like that of Knud Jensen, a Danish cyclist in the 1960 Rome Games who collapsed and died from a combination of stimulants, spurred the international Olympic Committee to initiate drug testing.In 1976, Olym

26、pic cheating entered the Electronic Age. During the fencing event of the modern pentathlon, the light on the pe of the USSRs Boris Onischenko flashed to indicate that he had scored a hit against his adversary. Unfortunately, at the time it went off, the weapon was nowhere near his opponent, Britains

27、 Jim Fox. Upon investigation, the judges discovered that Boris had been a rather naughty boy, having rewired his sword to light at any moment he would deem appropriate. Boris and the entire Soviet team were immediately disqualified. The athlete himself has not been heard from since. Perhaps he has b

28、een sent to Siberia. Or to a better electronic school.Then there is the matter of “sex cheating.” This can involve women taking such large doses of male hormones to improve their performance that they lose nearly all female characteristics and should really not be allowed to use the ladies room. (In

29、 some cases the sex of the athlete is a matter of conjecture.) There is no need to conjecture about Dora Ratjen, the German athlete who just missed a gold medal in the womens high jump in the notorious Olympics of 1936. “She” subsequently set world records in this event that remained on the books un

30、til years later, when it was discovered that “Dora” was, in fact, Hermann Ratjen, a mediocre male athlete, but an excellent female impersonator.As I look over what I have written, I feel that I have presented an excessively bleak picture of an inherently glorious event. Though the misbehavior described is tragic but true, I still do not share the pessimism of the writer whose most famous work has given him a near-franchise on the digit “1984.” George Orwell viewed the Olympics as “bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing vio