SPORTS: The Olympics

Don't shoot the pianist! He's doing his best! Soon the Olympics will be over, and then I shall pay another tune. I have indeed done my best to appreciate the games. but the only sport which seems to me to satisfy most criteria is soccer, and in that I have HUMANITY behind me.

But not Paul Simon, whose name suggest a soccer fan. But, no! He writes: "Soccer fans; I've heard this theory and don't necessarily agree with it, but it is worth cogitating over: Soccer is a sport of cooperation. Also incredibly boring; (You know--" back to schmidt-to muller-back to schmidt again, and again to mueller, and on to beckenbauer, and back to schmidt and to.....) with the game ending in a 1-1 tie. Countries where soccer is the premier sport don't put the value on star performance, individual initiative, and big scoring that the USA does. They also don't have the competitive edge the USA does in other endeavors. Where's the raw force of boxing or hockey?" And so on...

My comment: Civilization must move toward cooperation, not raw competition. Boxing is at the bottom or my list, and as for hockey, its violence is notorious. The US Congress has held hearings on violence in sports, and a Canadian, James McMurtry, who was called to testify, singled out hockey as among the nastiest.

Humans love violence. Apart from soccer, most sports seemed to me silly, grotesque or nasty. One game consists of kicking the rival in the belly. The women´s games were particularly unattractive. When the kick landed, the crowd roared. It reminded me of Blasco Ibañez' Sangre y arena, the story of a top bullfighter, who, soon after a roar of applause, was badly wounded by the bull and carried out. The next bullfighter comes on, and every time he wounds the bull, the crowd roars. The story ends "Rugía la fiera, la verdadera, la única." "The beast, the real beast, the only beast was roaring."

Most of the Olympic athletes seemed to be nice, simple people, often crying in sorrow or in joy. Particularly sad was the case of the French woman Marie Jose Perec, a black champion runner, who abandoned the games and left Sydney. People said she was very temperamental. On her return to Paris, she was interviewed at length on TV. Why had she left her luxury hotel? She had said she did not want room service, but a man came to her room anyway, and she was frightened. Why was she living in the hotel and not with the French team, which was staying in the Olympic Village, where she could have taken refuge? "I have nothing in common with those French people, they are strangers to me." She apparently came from a French overseas territory. She said she was very depressed, and she looked it. So was I.

Ronald Hilton - 9/29/00