A Tale of 2 Athletes and the Olympic Movement

Ever since I was a kid and taken a fancy to sport at large, the Olympics, the greatest show on earth captivated my imagination. Whether it was Dr. Pierre de Coubertin’s passion for the Olympics or Father Henri Dideon’s now immortal Citius Altius Fortius (the Olympic motto), it was the summer games that always blew me over - for obvious reasons the winter games would not garner such attention what with me totally oblivious of the nuances of a Bobsleigh or a giant slalom.

The original athlete or should I say the “Most Valuable One” was Jim Thorpe, who undoubtedly is part of Olympic folklore. Thorpie was one of the most versatile athletes in modern sport; he won Olympic gold medals in the pentathlon and decathlon, played American football collegiately and professionally as also professional baseball and basketball. However, he was in the scheme of things long back, well before the 1st world war and thus, the one name in that similar league that was much closer to present times was Alfred Oerter. Big Al was a genial hulk who created Olympic history by being the 1st athlete to win a single discipline 4 Olympics in succession (the discus for the uninitiated), much in the same mode the good fanny did. Now, before you jump into ideas, we are of course talking of the flying Dutch, Fanny Blankers Koen, the first female athlete to win 4 medals in 1 single Olympic. If what Fanny did was well ahead of her times, Al’s achievement can be considered superhuman, if only in concept and not achievement. People those days were not known to retain Olympic medals of any hue, let alone strike gold for 4 consecutive games. Boy! Till we saw Carl Lewis do it much later, close to the 3rd millennium did we realize that it was possibly do-able but by athletes way above the hoi polloi in competence and capability. Al Oerter once said that he never was a favorite to win any of his 4 golds – in Melbourne, 56 he was too young at 20. At Rome 60, he was not the favorite having survived a near fatal automobile accident 2 years back that nearly killed him. In Tokyo, 64 he was bothered by a neck injury and then tore a cartilage in his ribs shortly before the competition. And in Mexico City, 68, he was deemed over the hill, only to win the gold again. Surprisingly, he won all his gold medals with new Olympic records, that too a record in itself.

The injury in his 64 Tokya games occurred six days before competition was to begin. While throwing a discus he slipped on a wet concrete discus circle and tore rib cartilage on his right side, causing internal bleeding and severe pain. Team doctors told him to forget the Olympics and not throw for six weeks. He refused and is said to have said, “These are the Olympics. You die before you quit.” Such indomitable spirit epitomized the Olympic Games and made legends out of normal humans.

Circa 2000, the Sydney Games……a very attractive and beautiful negress stormed the athletic world and won not only 5 medals but billions of hearts worldwide. If ever beauty, grace, skill, speed and passion combined, Marion Jones was the potent epitome. Jonesy, as I would fondly call her, emulated her childhood idol, the rock-star like Florence Griffith Joyner. Flo-Jo, of the 20 painted nails and irreparable sprint world records, was someone who shocked the world with sub 10.5’s in the women’s 100m and the fact that Marion was black and doing the same rounds was too uncanny a resemblance. Alas, it was not to be the only connection that these two famous yet fatal athletes would draw on. Flo Jo died an untimely death at only 38, alleged by many specialists as effected by drug overdose. Her records would lead many to conjecture that she did consume performance enhancing drugs, though it was never proven even posthumously. Her death accentuated the idea further but lack of proof possibly absolved her. She was a prima donna, pretty, sexy, successful and on top of Olympics glory, till death did her part from husband Al and the athletic fraternity. Jonesy was of similar ilk. A prima donna, pretty, sexy, successful and on top of Olympics glory, till reality and truth caught up with her. It was death of innocence and artificial glory in her case. The BALCO scandal and successive investigations seemed flawed way back in 2004 when in front of the world, Jones vehemently denied that she had never ever taken drugs and was wrongly being made the proverbial scapegoat. Alas, time and reality (or death) catches up with wrongdoers, or so I believe. If truth needs to come out, circumstances contrive to unfold it. Jonesy’s one time beloved hubby and coach CJ Hunter, told world media after his divorce that his ex-wife had taken human growth hormone and a designer steroid ironically known as "the clear" at the Sydney Games. At times, Hunter said, he personally injected Jones with banned substances. He also reported seeing Jones inject herself with drugs at the residence they shared in Australia.

It was a shock to me to see the same athlete in her early 20s that had seduced America and had the whole world kissing her feet in 2000, crying in front of world media 7 years later, seeking forgiveness because she had cheated her country, her family, her near & dear ones and herself for personal glory. Marion Jones was a heartthrob of men and women alike, but in hindsight she looks like the Ben Johnson of yore - full of promise, talent, attitude, spunk but lacking the basic ethical values that make athletes, sportsmen and people. Jones made for fabulous copy. She was smart, sexy, stunning and media savvy. She smiled for the cameras, glammed up for magazine covers, set sky-high goals and in reality reached them. But while she is being castigated today for her wrong doing (and so should she), for the public sadly growing accustomed to disappointment from their sporting heroes (remember Floyd Landis and Barry Bonds), the denouement of Marion Jones was indeed a painful moment. Ann Killion, a sports columnist at the San Jose Mercury News, recalled last Friday on CNN how she along with everyone else in the US had been seduced by the Jones image. Not only in the US, but everyone across the globe was seduced by Jones, just as they would be by a Broadway star or a soccer star.

In reality though, Jones should be dealt with capital punishment IMHO. It should be so landmark in precedence (may be extended jail time) so that no one ever again should even think of using drugs to cheat in sport. Athletics today is big money and achieving success through illicit means is thereby the path of least resistance to glory, which people often try successfully. Jones cheated not only the fans, the Aussie organizers who spent billions to stage the greatest show on earth only to be slapped on their faces 7 years later that the star performer of their show was a swindler, the sport, the athletic fraternity and its many jewels who surely heaped encomiums on her but most importantly her fellow athletes. The evergreen Marlene Ottey, Inger Miller, Pauline Davis-Thompson, Tatiana Kotova, Irina Privilova, even our neighbor Susanthika Jayasinghe who all lost out at either the Olympics or the world championships or some Golden League event all were cheated by Marion. These people many of who missed the podium or a better hued medal due to her will never experience the thrill of Olympic glory. In many ways, Jonesy has robbed the sport off because people will always question now whether superlative performances are drug aided. In fact, the sport is mired with such rubbish that the 100 m silver winner in Sydney, Eakterina Thanou was at the center of a doping controversy in 2004 and did not run in her own nation's Olympics. Thanou, Kostas Kenteris and 12 others are due to face a Greek court over charges of perjury relating to allegedly faking a motorcycle accident to avoid a drug test on the eve of the Athens Games. If found guilty, she could be sentenced to up to six years' jail and herself stripped of the Olympic silver. The biggest irony would be handing Jones’ gold to her. Ukrainian sprinter Zhanna Block, who defeated Jones in the 100 meters at the 2001 World Championships, was also reportedly listed in an investigator's report as receiving drugs from Balco, although she was never banned and she denied involvement. Those are just two. The wonderful world of athletics is sadly a system deeply rooted in doping culture today.

Al Oerter, at the age 43 in 1980, threw his career best and the second longest throw in the world that year. In the 1980 Olympic trials, he finished fourth, one place and 4 feet short of making the team. After Oerter’s last throw, the crowd gave him a five-minute standing ovation. Believe it or not, he re-emerged at 47 for the 1984 Olympic trials. He reached the finals, only to tear a calf muscle jogging before his last three throws. In 1987, at the staggering age of 50 years, he quit elite competition for good, because “the drug culture had taken over.” Once asked in his 40s, what he had to prove at that age, he replied: “You don’t understand. It’s not whether you get there. It’s the journey.” People like Al Oerter were the romantics in sport. They typified what people looked up to sportsmen for, toiling hard in the sun and coming up with performances that were superhuman yet legitimate. They are a dead / dying breed today. It’s the dirty world of athletics show business today, where people take drugs to cap glory, which rules. It is such a shame that Citius Altius Fortius is but a buzzword and has different connotations today.

IOC boss, Jacques Rogge, an Olympian from the old school, thus has his hands full to eradicate corruption. All three Olympic Games that Rogge has presided over have thankfully begun with athletes taking an oath against doping. Let us all pray that the values of the Olympic movement come back to have many more Alfred Oerter’s in the years to come.

Al Oerter died a natural death on the 1st of October, 2007. A few days later Marion Jones died an unnatural and gruesome death.



P.S. This article was written on a flight from Madrid to Milan under the influence of 6 glasses of wine. Strangely, the words and history just unfolded themselves without any effort whatsoever. This is one of the most touching pieces that I have ever written, so passionate am I about sport. Please leave comments.