Bill Sykes' Newsletter
from America.
(September 2004)
An ex-Brit gives his views-(without fear
or favor)---of the American Scene
The 28th Olympiad.
 Now
you have read the Olympic history on the previous page,
(or
not),
let’s
move on to the current 28th Olympiad recently held in Athens, Greece.
The Greek
Government spent the enormous sum of approximately 10 billion
dollars, (Greek Drachma equivalent), in building some spectacular
and magnificent stadiums, (plus the essential infrastructure),
at several Greek venues to herald the return of the Olympics
to the land of its birth.
A problem arose when expected tourists stayed
away in droves, due to many reasons, and ticket sales
were very much diminished as could be seen by the lack
of the expected crowds at the magnificent stadiums built
to house the games. So it would appear that the financial
outlay will far exceed the expected income and the people
of Greece are going to be saddled with an enormous debt
for years to come.
 Magnificent performances by a majority
of the participating athletes were marred in several
cases by doubtful and inaccurate judging. Two particularly
controversial judging cases came in the Men’s Gymnastic
competitions which involved the scoring of contesting
American, Korean, and Russian athletes, where the judges
gave the Americans participants higher point scores and
medal advantage than the other participants much to the
attending spectator’s displeasure.
The
first case involved a dispute over what the Korean delegation considered
to be an inaccurate and unfair scoring infringement involving
the judging of an American participant, which deprived
a competing Korean athlete of a medal.
This infraction by the judges was the subject of an after
the fact challenge by the Korean delegation.
Three of the
judges involved, (nationalities not known), were dismissed
from participating in further judging, but even so, the
Gold Medal presented to the American participant was
not rescinded.
Let me point out that there was no blame attached to the American participant
for the judging decisions.
 The second case was a much more heavily disputed challenge
by the Russian delegation in which it was stated that
flagrant bad judging and scoring, cost one Russian participant
a Gold Medal in the all-round gymnastic competition and
ruled another out of the medal standings in the gymnastic
high-bar finals.
The crowded stadium showed its disproval
of what they interpreted as controversial scoring, and
poor judgements by the officials, by interrupting the
proceedings for at least ten minutes by loud booing.
Of course I must point out that the judges are chosen
for their knowledge and expertise in the particular sport
that they are assessing and are, (or should be), fully
conversant with the rules governing the particular methods
of scoring the performance of the competitors being judged.
The spectators in general rely on visual observations
when comparing the relative performances given by the
competing athletes, whilst the judges are expected to
make fair and impartial decisions.
The spectators may miss out on some of the technicalities, but from
my observations they in general are not too far wrong in their assessments
of who gave the best performance in each particular event.
Comments and observations:
The International community's
desire to achieve the highest "Gold Medal" count,
 has become an obsession with some of the leading nations
of this world, and has lead to some participating athletes
being pressurized to the point of great physical and
mental stress to perform way beyond their capabilities,
and God forbid that if a performer who was expected to bring home
a Gold Medal fails to meet the desired results.
The Silver and Bronze medals obtained by competitors,
who literally missed first place by tenths of a second
or a tenth of a point, should be given equal accolades
as it is of psychological importance to the individual
gaining such a medal even though at the time they may
think that they have failed and in many cases are so
distressed that they subsequently break down in tears.
On the other hand Gold Medal winners can expect huge
financial rewards from sponsors who latch on to the winning
athletes to promote their products. What a competitive
and superficial world we live in.
I have watched with interest, and some dismay, the
American media portrayal of the 28th Olympiad and am
somewhat appalled by the "continuous" interjection
of comments by some of the sportscasters when describing
on-going events, and their constant prattle as to how
this or that American athlete is destined to obtain a
gold medal, plus of course the general nationalistic
desire and trend to completely concentrate the focus
of the camera upon the American competitors when ever
possible, much to the detriment of some viewers who wish
to see balanced reporting of the events.
For instance, during a sparsely attended women’s
soccer match, in which American athletes were involved,
the two commentators, (one male and one female), prattled
on about the background and personal attributes of one
or another of the American players whilst the play was
on-going, and the female commentator injected comments
like, "xxxx is picking up the ball for a throw
in - oh dear, oh dear, the ball was intercepted by a
player of the opposing team", or something like
that.
In the middle of one particular period of play, the TV station switched to
a two-minute commercial message and then came back to state, "During
our short absence, America scored". Can you imagine that - but there
again, American TV ads are sacrosanct. Commentators and the American TV viewing
public are used to and accept such interruptions, or shall I say intrusions.
For instance it has been said that American football has specifically planned
time-outs in order to insert commercials. Getting back to the soccer match
- I immediately lost all interest in watching the remainder of the match, even
after turning the sound off, and switched to the depressing news on most of
the other so called news stations about how American forces were bombing the
Holy City of Najaf in order one would suppose to install Democracy in Iraq!!!
 The stress placed upon current day athletes, in the desire
of their coaches, management, or sponsors, is enormous
and has lead to several instances where the athletes have
knowingly, (or un-knowingly), ingested illegal performance
enhancing drugs which has resulted in those athletes, who
have been discovered during random testing to have traces
of illegal substances in their system, to be ejected from
the games.
It has been suggested that certain pharmaceutical companies are in the process
of producing undetectable performance enhancing drugs that will not show up in
random testing.
I would suggest that perhaps the modern Olympic games have now outlived their
usefulness due to the increased political, nationalistic, and commercial bias,
which has tainted the prior intent and purpose of the ancient games.
By offering huge monetary incentives to the winning athletes of the modern
games those athletes have now attained a semi-professional status which could
be interpreted by many people of this world as being morally wrong, as it gives
the more affluent nations a definite edge over the less affluent nations. But
what else is new - hasn’t
it always been that way?
Now that the Olympic games are back where they first started perhaps the world
should consider discontinuing the games and laying them to rest amongst the aged
stone pillars of the Parthenon.
I would predict that the Americans will lose the coveted position of having won
the most Gold medals and China will come out the winner of the Gold Rush.
We welcome feedback about any of the contents of these
newsletters. Please send all correspondence to bill_sykes@huddersfield1.co.uk
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