Cheating and Politics at the Olympics; That's a New Thing, Right?
Cheating? Ah, back in the good old days, those guys knew that winning wasn't everything, that it was the spirit of cooperation that counted, that politics had no place in the sacred games, that an olive wreath was all you could expect, even if you won...
Bunk.
I worked one summer at Isthmia, one of the Panhellenic games sites in Greece. The dig house was just outside the games site, and on the day we arrived we took a look.
We noticed that the early Stadium, used during the classic period, had a strange arrangement of holes and channels cut into the bedrock used as the starting area for the races.
What was all this work about? Well, evidently the racers always looked for an edge, meaning that even in antiquity the craftiest started just a tad early. What we were looking at was one of the first attempts to hold the runners back so as not to let any one runner create an advantage by jumping the gun. The starter used a series of ropes intricately threaded through those channels to keep the runners at bay.
So, cheating has been around just about forever.
And not only that, but the later stadium was moved away from the altar and temple, indicating an increasing separation between religion and sport over time.
Shifty politics have had a place in the Olympics since ancient times as well. A Cretan (that's someone from Crete--stop your sniggering!) named Sotades won the long race one year. The very next year he was bribed by a bunch of rowdy Ephesians to run for them. He did...and was banished by the Cretans.
And that olive wreath? Sure, the ancient athletes didn't get paid, but they often ate meals at public expense, were guaranteed great theater and festival seats, and even had buildings built for them.
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For more on politics in the Olympics like the one above, see The Context of the Games and the Olympic Spirit.
For more about the Isthmian games and site, including a small diagram of the starting mechanism at Isthmia: see OSU Excavations at Isthmia.
Comments
Simply amazing !!
20 minutes into Olympic coverage and NBC has already screwed it up horribly. NBC has the opportunity to start their Olympic coverage with the dramatic opening ceremony and the instead they show a dry, boring interview. I sat down my three young kids to watch the opening ceremony and have them witness a historical international athletic event. Instead we were all bored by 8:15. My wife left the room and the kids are know watching an Arnold movie instead of the Olympics. Way to go NBC, you have really out-done yourselves. We are all angry and “out” for the remainder of the Olympics. If you screwed up the opening, we are certain NBC cannot provide good coverage of the rest of the games.
Bye bye for three weeks.
The Adamowicz Family
Orange , CA
Beyond the opening ceremony coverage, there’s a bigger annoyance looming. After all the criticism regarding the delayed coverage last Olympics, I’m surprised & disgusted to see NBC stick with the money-motivated decision to make everyone wait until prime commercial timeslots to see the highlight events. When everyone is plugged into the live results via sports-news & internet, the primetime broadcasts aren’t worth watching because there’s no suspense!! This is the sick commercialism that kills a great event like the Olympics. Come ON!! Get it right! Live broadcast 24×7! NBC has enough stations & affiliates to do it. Stand up for the spirit of the games for heavens sake.
I cant believe the scoring towards the USA it has already started and this is only the first day. Why cant they find judges who can score fairly? I am sick of the USA being scored below average. Every set of games wether winter or summer the scoring just get worse. The winter Olympics is even worse. We can win when it comes to timed events but put a set of judges in there and we will lose every time. I think someone should take a good look at the scoring over the last few winter games and they will see so judges are cheating. I am proud of everu American over there but they even know they are not being scored fairly. Lets bring fairness back to the Olympics and give everyone a fair chance no matter where they are from.
Rebecca in Al.