The Olympic Spirit and Us

Olympics for me began with the summer games in Rome, 1960. I was in 7th grade then and I remember my dad excitedly telling me that Pakistan had beaten India in hockey 1-0 after six successive Olympic failures. We were in Bangladesh (East Pakistan then) and it seemed a big deal, particularly because I played in my school hockey team and knew the rules of the game. I wasn’t aware of Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) and Rafer Johnson at the time but I do recall seeing photographs of Wilma Rudolph, winner of god medals in 100 and 200 meters and the 400 meters relay, and telling myself: she has to be the most graceful female sprinter ever. My opinion hasn’t changed in 48 years. Another athlete who captured my imagination was the Ethiopian Abebe Bikila who ran barefoot in the streets of Rome to win the Marathon gold.

I was keenly interested in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics because of the inevitable clash between India and Pakistan in the field hockey final. India regained its supremacy by defeating Pakistan. But I was also expanding my horizon and began to follow other sports with equal passion.

Pakistan beat Australia in the final in the 1968 Mexico City Olympics to win the field hockey gold but that was more or less the beginning of the end for both Pakistan and India. Other countries were rapidly catching up. Although the two nations enjoyed some success afterwards, they would now be lucky to win a bronze medal.

But my interest was already shifting and what I remember reading about the Mexico City Olympics was the long jump record set by America’s Bob Beamon. The guy almost jumped out of sight, setting an astonishing record of 29’2½”, one that stood for 23 years until another American, Mike Powell, broke it with a record of 29’4½” in the World Championship game in Tokyo in 1991. But the dominant story of that Olympics, the Black Power salute by Tommie Smith and John Carlos, passed me by.

On my way from the newly-independent nation of Bangladesh to Halifax, Canada, in 1972 for higher studies, I stopped by in Munich at the invitation of a friend from Dhaka University. The Munich Olympics was the first that I attended in person and I was awed by its sights and sounds. It felt unreal, to be at the center of the sports world where the fastest and the strongest were competing for glory. I had never seen such affluence and even the big moon that hung low at night seemed to be acknowledging the spectacle on the earth below. I was able to catch only one event, a soccer game between West Germany and United States on a warm night. U.S. lost the game 7-0 and my vocal rooting for the underdog brought curious glances from the Germans around me. But I was in sports heaven and was convinced the magic would last forever. I heard about the impossible performance of an American swimmer named Mark Spitz but could not register what it was all about

I left before the Munich massacre. When I landed in Canada, the closing ceremonies were taking place and the shock and horror signaled that Olympics and politics and tragedy would become inseparable in the years to follow.

By the time I came to the United States in 1974, I was a bona fide sports fanatic. I was studying at Temple University in Philadelphia. In August of 1976, I took a train from New York to Montreal – the Adirondack – passing through Hudson Valley and the lush countryside. I was at Montreal from beginning to end and saw several track and field events and, of course, field hockey. The world awoke to a Romanian wunderkind named Nadia Comaneci who scored seven unheard of perfect 10s in gymnastics on her way to three gold medals. I would get up at dawn and take the subway to the main Olympic stadium and start taking photographs right and left, trying to capture as many faces and events as I could. I saw decathlon champion Bruce Jenner in action. But after two weeks of nonstop Olympic excitement, I was happy to return to my apartment at Temple.

After moving to San Jose, California in 1979, my sports fever continued unabated but I was content to watch successive Olympics on TV. Sure, that feeling of being there was irreplaceable but it was also physically demanding, and I was happy to trade immediacy for comfort. Besides, I could see more, even if it meant late-night vigils.

And here we are now, on the eve of the Beijing Olympics. The Web and the papers are full of pundits lamenting the commercialization of Olympics, the doping scandals, the mercenary attitude of some nations to win at the expense of dehumanizing their athletes, and so on. But they are missing the point. For two weeks, the Olympic spirit, however flawed and frayed, will reign supreme and the world will applaud the winners and lend the losers a shoulder to cry on. There is honor in trying to do one’s best, and a Bangladeshi athlete can rejoice equally in having taken part as an American athlete standing on the podium moist-eyed as the Star-Spangled Banner plays. China is expected to dominate the medal count and showcase its emergence as a superpower but that is nothing compared to the ties that will unite the athletes and the fans for a few days and make us believe in our common humanity.

I will be rooting for Michael Phelps to break Mark Spitz’s record of seven gold medals but it will be tough. He will have to be as perfect as Nadia Comaneci was in Montreal. Actually he will have to do her one better. If that’s not asking for the impossible, I don’t know what is. But it is in the Olympics that the impossible happens. And therein rests its magic. The Olympics reminds us that the impossible is only a limitation of the imagination, that we have it in us to overcome this limitation and discover the hidden gold within. Long live the Olympics spirit!

A Call for Olympians to Take a Stand Against the Genocide in Darfur

The Olympic charter contains these soaring lines: “The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.”

However, the charter also prohibits demonstrations of "political, religious or racial propaganda" at the official venues.

Should athletes follow the letter or the spirit of the Olympics charter? The question is gaining urgency as the world prepares to celebrate the summer Olympics in China in August this year.

China’s human rights violations in Tibet and, in particular, its complicity in the genocide in Darfur, are known to all but the most insular. Sudan whets China's bottomless appetite for oil and spends a significant portion of its oil revenue to buy arms from China. Protected by its trading partner at the United Nations, the Khartoum government has consistently flouted international appeals to stop the genocide in Darfur that it has waged with its allied Janjaweed militia on the darker-skinned indigenous farmers of the region since 2003.

One athlete who feels passionately about the Darfur genocide is the American Joey Cheek. Cheek won the gold medal in 500-meter speed skating at the 2006 winter Olympics in Turin. At the awards ceremony, Cheek announced that he was donating all his winnings from the U.S. Olympic Committee, a total of $40,000, to Darfurian refugees in Chad.

I can still recall how stunned and electrified I was (feelings that I undoubtedly shared with millions of TV viewers around the world) at the magnitude of this humanitarian gesture.

In a recent article, Cheek explained his motivation: “I feel no different from a person born in any other area of the world, except perhaps a bit luckier. And if people were gunning down my family, I would certainly want the world to help. So that's what I tried to do.”

Cheek launched a Website that monitors the situation in Darfur. It has become the catalyst for an international coalition of athletes determined to bring an end to the violence that has so far claimed over 400,000 lives in Western Sudan and created a staggering 2.5 million refugees.

Cheek wants to use the Beijing Olympics as a platform for peacefully publicizing the genocide in Darfur. Although not a contestant, his message to participating athletes is moving and forceful: “I sincerely hope that the newest Olympic champions not only show graciousness toward their Chinese hosts, but also issue a stern call for action in Darfur. With its significant ties to Sudan, China is one of the countries in the world best positioned to do more to stop the killing in Darfur, and it is the responsibility of athletes competing there this summer to say that -- respectfully yet forcefully -- even as they focus on their own athletic accomplishments.”

Mia Farrow, George Clooney, Don Cheadle and several other public figures have been working to draw the world's attention on the horrors of Darfur. In an ideal world sports and politics would not mix but we do not live in an ideal world. Who can ever forget the Black Power salute of Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 summer Olympics in Mexico City, and how it shook up the status quo? Joey Cheek is right to mobilize athletes to stop the unending violence in Darfur by putting pressure on the Chinese government. After all, what can be “faster, higher, stronger” than the force of will to defend those who are unable to defend themselves?