Power Games. Jules BoykoffЧитать онлайн книгу.
stadium. This put the marathon distance at 26 miles, 385 yards, which has remained the official length ever since.169
The Games were marked by strident nationalism, much of it coming from the Americans who traveled across the Atlantic to compete with their former colonizers. US Olympic officials were displeased with the lodging the team was assigned in London, perceiving it as a slight, and decided to stay in Brighton instead.170 The American flag was not flown at the opening ceremonies, furthering tensions, so the US flag bearer returned the favor by opting not to dip the flag in deference to the British monarchy in attendance. Irish-American athletes, meanwhile, bristled at Britain’s rejection of Irish independence. US Olympics officials including James E. Sullivan complained about the officiating, an objection European observers dismissed as American hyper-competitiveness.171 British royalty were offended by the Americans’ behavior, and Coubertin agreed, noting the American athletes’ “barbaric shouts that resounded through the stadium.” As for Sullivan, “he shared his team’s frenzy and did nothing to try to calm them down.”172
Sullivan lived up to his reputation as a cutthroat competitor, working hard behind the scenes to declare ineligible the Canadian Tom Longboat—an Onondaga runner from the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation in Ontario—who was favored to win the marathon. Longboat was ultimately declared an amateur and allowed to participate, but for many, the American’s efforts to exclude him left a sour taste.173 Such fractiousness prompted the New York Times to report, “Thoughtful men in England have serious doubts … as to whether the Olympian games serve any good purpose, while theoretically they are supposed to foster international friendship.” A prime outcome of the 1908 Games was “to create international dissensions and kindle animosities.”174 Meanwhile, feminist activists like Emmeline Pankhurst used the Olympics as a platform for suffrage, vowing to interrupt the Games if organizers refused to allow women to participate. They used guerrilla tactics like shoveling up golf courses and leaving behind messages like “No Votes, No Golf.”175
While the 1908 Games in London were a mixed picture, many historians identify the 1912 Games in Stockholm as the Olympics that established them as a top-tier international event.176 Coubertin described the contrast between the two: “Whereas in London the life of the huge metropolis had not been influenced by the invasion of Olympism, the whole of Stockholm was impregnated by it.”177 Sullivan concurred. Upon his return to the United States after Stockholm, he beamed, “I have never seen a better managed set of sports since I’ve been in the Games.”178 The Olympics were becoming more advanced technologically and organizationally. To preempt allegations of bias, officials from international sports federations served as judges rather than local coordinators.179 Swedish officials set the standard for record keeping, deploying electric timers and finish-line photographic technology for greater precision. The “Pentathlon of the Muses” was born, with prizes handed out for literature, architecture, and the arts.180 Stockholm was where Coubertin won gold for his pseudonymous poem “Ode to Sport.”
Jim Thorpe was arguably the biggest superstar of the Games. He was a Native American from Oklahoma, born to a father of Sac and Fox and Irish descent and a mother who was Potawatomie and French. Thorpe was a dazzling multi-sport athlete who starred in football, baseball, and track and field.181 In 1912 he achieved the remarkable feat of winning both the pentathlon and the decathlon. Among his competitors in these two events was a young Avery Brundage, the future president of the IOC. Brundage noted in his personal papers that the “1912 Games were the first that were really properly organized.”182 But Brundage himself did not have his act together. He actually dropped out of the pentathlon when he knew he was out of contention rather than completing all the events, a decision that shamed him decades later. According to his biographer, “Thorpe’s shadow was to haunt Brundage the rest of his life.”183
In a front-page story, the New York Times anointed Thorpe—whom the paper had once called “the Redskin from Carlisle”—the “finest all-around athlete in the world.” King Gustav V of Sweden concurred, telling Thorpe, “Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world.” Sullivan deemed Thorpe “the real hero of the Olympics.” When Thorpe was announced as champion of the pentathlon, the New York Times reported: “There was a great burst of cheers, led by the King. The immense crowd cheered itself hoarse, renewing its efforts a few moments later when Thorpe reappeared to receive a valuable silver model of a Viking ship presented by the Emperor of Russia to the winner of the decathlon.”184 Thorpe kindled pride in Native Americans and non-Natives alike.
Nevertheless, the Games weren’t pure bliss. Despite Coubertin’s pleas for internationalism, the Olympics once again stirred intense nationalist sentiments that bubbled up throughout the festival. Media coverage encouraged a nationalist frame by regularly tallying up the number of medals and points secured by each country.185 And inevitably, global politics intruded. Olympians from Finland were anything but pleased by having to participate under the Russian flag. They marched with their own flag at the opening ceremonies, aggravating the Russians.
One year after the Games, Thorpe was stripped of his medals for having broken the amateur code—in 1909 and 1910 he received a small sum of money ($60 a month) for playing semiprofessional baseball.186 Coubertin actually opposed taking away the medals but was outvoted by his fellow IOC members.187 In response, Coubertin wrote an Olympic oath, steeped in the principles of amateurism, that athletes would be required to swear by. “Beside its wonderful moral value,” wrote the Baron, “the athlete’s oath is proving to be the only practical means to put an end to this intolerable state of affairs,” by which he meant “disguised professionalism.”188 The oath was first used at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp.189
A campaign to get Thorpe’s medals restored emerged, and persisted for years. Thorpe’s old rival, Avery Brundage, became ensnared in the controversy as a member of the IOC and eventually as its president. Brundage was barraged with letters from a range of individuals and groups—from the Carlisle Jaycees to the US Senate Committee on Post Office and Civil Service—asking him to return Thorpe’s medals. Florida congressman James A. Haley pointed to French skiers whose commercial connections violated the spirit of amateurism but were still allowed to compete. The Committee for Fair Play for Jim Thorpe sent a telegram imploring him to restore the medals since “Thorpe is an ailing and aging man and return of the medals will bring happiness to a great athlete in the twilight of his career.” A private citizen, H. T. Cooke, wrote, “I am hoping there will be a reconsideration of this ruling before the old Redskin passes on to the Happy Hunting Ground” since “it would be favorably received by the general public.”190 Senator A. S. “Mike” Monroney of Oklahoma reasoned, “I seriously doubt that all of the money that Jim Thorpe earned in his professional career as an athlete measures up to the money that ‘amateurs’ are paid today to play college football, basketball, baseball, run track, or participate in other events, which in many cases qualify them for participation in the Olympic Games.”191
However, through the years Brundage remained unmoved, performing mental gymnastics of Olympian proportions to justify his continued refusal to restore Thorpe’s medals. He informed Senator Monroney that Thorpe’s medals been redistributed to other athletes and that, in any case, Thorpe’s “outstanding record as an athlete in competition remains, and actual possession of the medals would add little to it.”192 He wrote to the sportswriter Grantland Rice, “I doubt if the men who received Thorpe’s medals would give them up”; moreover, the medals were handed out by the Swedish Organizing Committee and “I am very doubtful that they would have any interest in the subject.”193 He told H. T. Cooke that “Olympic Games medals have no particular intrinsic value, since only silver gilt medals are given to the winner.” He then concluded dismissively, “This matter was reviewed by the 1951 Amateur Athletic Union Convention with 300 delegates from all over the United States and it was decided that nothing could be done.”194
But something could be done and eventually was. In 1982, at the behest of USOC president William Simon, the IOC voted to return Thorpe’s gold medals. In a ceremony in early 1983, Juan Antonio Samaranch presented Thorpe’s children