Frank Deford of National Public Radio spoke these words on April 8, 2008; just four months before Beijing. It's extraordinarily strong critique of the IOC for choosing totalitarian governments to host the Olympics all the while draping themselves as a movement rather than a capitalistic endeavor.
The torch relay was conjured up by the Nazis for the 1936 Olympics and then embedded in our dreamy Olympic consciousness by the magnificent gossamer photography of Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's favorite movie maker. Now, three-quarters of a century later, it has come back as an unexpected curse to haunt another totalitarian government to which the International Olympic Committee has hitched its wagon. [China, who endured numerous torch relay protests.]
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Only the IOC still calls itself a movement and gets away with it. Hey, it's no more than an international cartel that puts on a big show every four years. It's just NASCAR with accents. And to tell you the truth, I think the Olympics are yesterday's party. Once upon a time, before globalism and jet airplanes and cyberspace, bringing athletes together quadrennially in one place might have made sense. Today, it's an unnecessary excess. And while insular Americans might not understand this, the World Cup of soccer has become much more important to many more people in the world.
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My take: I think it would be very interesting if the IOC hosted each event like it's own "World Cup," or used the world cup as a template for how teams get to the Olympics
Above is a snapshot from an Olympic Torch gallery at the New York Times. I chose the torch as my favorite since it represented my hometown, i.e the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games. Click here to see the torches going back as far as 1936:
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Frank DeFord is quote a decorated writer. He has nearly a dozen journalistic awards and even an Emmy for his work during the Seoul Olympics. He is a best selling author who has written 15 books, served as chairman of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation for seventeen years, until 1999, and remains chairman emeritus.
His resumé is is both formidable and admirable.
3 comments:
Just some clarification here - you were actually on the committee which chose the torch for the 1984 Games? Or are you saying that your favorite torch of them all is the 1984 LA Games torch? Knowing your vocation the possibility of the former cannot be ruled out entirely so I ask.
The 1984 torch paid homage to the 1932 Olympics. It's very art-deco and it elicits an emotional response since it is my home town.
Design is about form, function sometimes one or the other. In this case I like the form only.
Maybe that's why Calgary 1988 looks like a bug-zapper.
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