Apprehension And Anticipation On The Road To Atlanta

The Age

Friday July 19, 1996

THE construction, the training, the mind games and the tidal waves of hype are over. Today, what the world has been waiting for since Barcelona four years ago begins again in Atlanta.

Today, the ideals that inspired the rebirth of the Olympic Games 100 years ago - physical and mental excellence and universal brotherhood through sport - again grasp the world's imagination.

A century on, those ideals seem more than ever under threat.

But it is part of the Olympic spirit to persevere. For all their shortcomings, the modern Olympics are a magnificent event, a kaleidoscope of color, activity, heroism and endeavor.

The critics may sneer but most of us are inescapably enthralled by the Games and the atmosphere they create.

When the International Olympic Committee awarded the centenary Games to Atlanta, it as good as ensured an extra element of drama. As the world's sole surviving super-power, the United States acts as a magnet to any group with a cause to publicise.

Consequently, any major event held in the US contains a geopolitical element not present in comparable events in other countries.

This is doubly true for an Olympic Games. Accordingly, when disasters occur in proximity to the Olympic fortnight and the Olympic city, our minds inevitably start to connect the possibilities.

No evidence has yet been made public that could link the destruction of TWA Flight 800 from New York to Paris with the Atlanta Olympics. It is not yet even established whether the disaster was the result of mechanical failure or the work of outside influences. Increasingly, however, US reports mention the possibility of terrorism. Witnesses to the last moments of the doomed aircraft are being questioned for clues. Radar records are being checked. There is conjecture that the catastrophe might have been caused by a surface-to-air missile. Such a vicious and cowardly strike against a civilian target would command world attention in any circumstances. That such a blow might have been struck on the eve of the Olympic opening ceremony makes the possibility even more riveting. Australians might well wonder: if the formidable technology of the US at its state of highest readiness has been unable to forestall such a disaster, what chance have authorities in Sydney got of making the 2000 Games secure?

In the absence of concrete knowledge about the fate of TWA Flight 800, perhaps such apprehension is unjustified. Yet the trend in Olympic history towards making the Games a political stage is too obvious to ignore. If he did not originate this idea, then Hitler was at least the first major figure to discredit Olympic ideals by his blatant anti-black behavior at the Berlin Games. His hateful record was surpassed in Munich, by gun- wielding terrorists who assassinated members of the Israeli team to draw attention to their cause. Since then we have endured enough boycotts, counter-boycotts, protests and demonstrations to make Baron de Coubertin's noble ambitions for world harmony look almost naive.

Yet it is not only nations that have tarnished the baron's ideals. His famous Olympic dictum - that the important thing is not to win but to have competed - may still be honored but is ever more rarely observed. For this regrettable development we can blame not only rivalry between those nations that crudely equate success in Olympic competition with national excellence, but also those individuals whose thirst for Olympic glory, and for the riches that now accompany it, far outstrip de Coubertin's ideals of fair play and sportsmanship.

Until recently, Australia could hold its head relatively high on both these counts. Australians had competed in all Games of the modern era and the majority of Australian athletes had made personal and financial sacrifices to compete. But those days have long passed. So abashed was the nation by its dearth of gold medals at Montreal that the Federal Government quickly established a program of grants and incentives for elite athletes. What was at first a trickle of cash has now become a flood, in part to ensure that Australia will not be disgraced at its own Games in Sydney four years hence. In concert with the growth of government support has been the decline of amateurism, to the degree that most athletes taking part in Atlanta are unashamedly professional.

There is nothing inherently wrong with professionalism in sport or even in the Olympics other than that it weakens claims often made by athletes that their main motivation during the long months of training and competition is the prospect of glory for their homeland. In fact, increasingly many athletes are motivated by the riches and celebrity gold medal success can bring. If any doubt remained about the purity of some athletes' intentions, it will surely have been dispelled by the doping scandals, selection squabbles and judging disputes that have become part and parcel of the modern Olympics.

Here also Australia's record is not as admirable as we might wish. Where once performance-enhancing drugs seemed to be the exclusive province of swimmers, runners and weightlifters representing other nations, Australia can no longer claim moral superiority in this field. Recent controversies involving Australian runners, swimmers and cyclists have shattered the aura of selfless endeavor that once enveloped any athlete selected to represent this nation at Olympic level.

But if our illusions have been dispelled, our curiosity about what the next fortnight holds remains undimmed. Perhaps apprehension has replaced anticipation. For Australians, as for Americans struggling to make sense of the Flight 800 tragedy, the road to Atlanta has been proved disconcertingly pot-holed.

The good news, however, is that now we have arrived. Today the Olympic flame bursts into life; the flags are broken out.

Please, let the Games begin.