Olympian Depths
Some spectacularly inept (or biased) judging in Olympic gymnastics over the past few days reminds me once again that I never did care for the IOC – or the USOC, for that matter.
Back in the days of Juan Antonio Samaranch (whose reign would later be exposed as a viper’s nest of bribes and other illicit goodies for IOC members), the USOC threatened to sue me for using the word “Olympic” in a historical piece I had written for an advertising client.
After receiving their threatening letter, I wrote to inquire how they presumed to own a three thousand year old word for a three million year old mountain. So they sent me the act passed by the U.S. Congress, ceding the word to them. The IOC, the USOC, and the U.S.Congress – what a trifecta!
I ignored them until they called to say they were planning to file suit against my tiny advertising agency, which at that time had a negative net worth. “Go ahead,” I told the attorney. “We’ll concede the lawsuit, and you’ll own the agency. Then you’ll be $35,000 in debt, and we won’t.” That’s the last we heard from the firm of Citius, Altius and Fortius (I guess). Nothing means more to the IOC than money.
Samaranch insisted on being addressed as “Your Excellency.” He also insisted on chauffer-driven limousines in his travels and on being given the presidential suite in every hotel where he stayed.
Before Samaranch was Lord Kilanin. and before him Avery Brundage, after whom the word “brundage” should surely become a common noun meaning an act of moral hypocrisy. Brundage is the one who – as then-president of the USOC — refused to boycott the 1936 games and then agreed to remove the only two Jews on the American team to avoid offending his Nazi hosts. (That’s how a slot opened up for Jesse Owens.) The following year, the Avery Brundage Company was given the contract to build Nazi Germany’s embassy in America.
He committed many other brundages. He bitterly opposed participation by woman athletes except in ceremonial or decorative roles. And he adamantly refused to restore native American Jim Thorpe’s Olympic medals, supposedly because of a very brief stint Thorpe had put in with a professional baseball team – which of course was not the sport for which he won his medals. But while adopting this sanctimonious posture in defense of amateurism, Brundage accepted the participation of literally thousands of full-time professional athletes from Eastern Bloc countries. Olympic sports were their sole occupation and livelihood.
Compared with these “shamateurs,” Thorpe was simon pure. But Brundage had an old score to settle. At the 1912 Olympics, he had competed in the decathlon and pentathlon and had been soundly beaten by none other than Jim Thorpe.
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A splendid anyalysis. Better, one should think, that the billions spent on staging the games be spent on humanitarian aid for those truly in need.
Comment by JDP — August 20, 2008 @ 10:09 am
I bristle with umbrage when Avery Brundage is mentioned at luncheon or brunch.
Comment by Dame Ball-Borcester — August 20, 2008 @ 3:42 pm
And well you should spout rage, regurgitate outrage, and punch his patooties for months
Comment by Al — August 20, 2008 @ 8:45 pm
By the way, the USOC is still committing brundages. They spent big bucks developing a respiratory mask for U.S. athletes competing in Beijing’s polluted air and issued a guidebook on its use: e.g., wear it when you first get off the plane. Two American bikers did just that, so of course the Chinese were insulted, the hate mail poured in, and the USOC? They cowered and groveled and called a press conference to criticize the bikers, then forced them to apologize. I guess when you’re bitten by your own dog, you get sued by your own lawyer.
Comment by Al — August 20, 2008 @ 8:54 pm