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Number one: Kerri Strug's one footed landing in 1996, leading to a team gold medal for the women's gymnastics team.
Number 2 That took a special kind of courage, and it showed that they were more than merely US beasts of burden.
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At that time, would it not have been more tied to the Black Panthers, Irami? Is that why they were reprimanded?
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The thing about Keri Strug....she didn't even have to go, although she didn't know about it at the time; the team had a lock on the medal, but bad math from her coaches led them to believe she had to land it.
She was placed at risk of serious, permanent injury because they had what my wife calls "a blonde moment".
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quote:Now, who was that guy who finished swimming his race even though he was miles behind?
Yeah, that was pretty cool.
quote:Wikipedia says that gesture has ties to communism. Is that why the medals were stripped away?
There are communist countries in the Olympics. The medals were stripped away for a breach in decorum. Tommie Smith and Juan Carlos' job was to run, and run quickly, not to be men. It's as if the Academy Awards stripped Michael Moore's Oscar away from him for making an inflammatory acceptance speech.
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By this strange standard you're using, Irami, everyone in the Olympics is a beast of burden.
The Olympics is not a contest to measure the standards of personhood, it's a contest to measure the standards of athleticism.
I don't think they should've been reprimanded, but how would you feel if they'd given a Nazi salute? There are neo-Nazis in the USA.
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My favorite moment is from the 2002 olypics when the japanese guy crashed into Bono on the last lap, causing the four lead runners to crash at the finish line. The Austrailian guy, who was half a lap behind, skates right past them for the win. Bono then crawled past the finish line.
That moment is forever in my mind. It wasn't that great of a moment, but it was my favorite.
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Unless it was clear somehow that the athletes were giving the salute as a symbol for sympathy with the Black Panthers and not just Black Power, I do not feel they should have been reprimanded and stripped of their medals.
Unfortunately the Black Power salute bears unbreakable ties in the minds of most people with the Black Panther movement, which probably has much more to do with their reprimand and punishment than any ties to communism.
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I was 10 years old at the time. I remember it very well. That summer was an amazing summer. The Black Power salute, which is perfectly respectable today, was something that struck fear into the hearts of middle america at that time. It was not necessary for there to be any connection to the Black Panthers in anyone's mind for them to be reprimanded and stripped of their medals. The Civil Rights Movement, which seems perfectly respectable and true-blue American to all of us now, was nevertheless a thing of fear and trepidation and anger to the established powers at that time.
I just wanted to correct that misapprehension, for I remember that salute very clearly, and the controversy and discussion that surrounded it. It was the courage of people like these, to stand up and be counted, to make it completely clear that they supported the civil rights movement, which eventually allowed the movement to become respectable in the eyes of mainstream america.
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I don't really remember any Olympic moments. So, I'll just say my favorite moment is Mark Spitz being awesome. We'll just forgot that I wasn't around then. Or I was, but I didn't watch the Olypmics then.
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I think the salute was, well, maybe not appropriate, but given the circumstance I think stripping their medals was completely inappropriate and unfair.
I remember well the Keri Strug landing, despite the fact that she didn't NEED to do it, it was still amazing to watch.
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This is why their medals were stripped, from the IOC:
quote:"The basic principle of the Olympic Games is that politics plays no part whatsoever in them. U.S. athletes violated this universally accepted principle . . . to advertise domestic political views."
They never recieved their medals and were banned from the Olympic village that evening; in addition, they gave the civil rights movement a healthy push and an untold number of people a sense of dignity. That's the kind of political courage I appreciate.
Here is what Smith said: "We weren't antichrists.[I don't know if he means anarchists, but the quote is in print.] We were just human beings who saw a need to be recognized."
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Much more impressive that Kerri Strug was the performance of Shun Fujimoto of Japan in 1976. The day before the ring event, he broke his knee cap doing a floor exercise routine. However, for his team to get the gold, he needed an excellent score on the rings. He had a nearly perfect routing and stuck the landing just long enough for the judges before he collapsed in agony. The Japanese won the gold by four tenths of a point over the Russians.
Strug's performance was unnecessary. This guy won his country a gold medal. I watched it happen and it was breath taking.
Michelle Kwan pulling out of the Olympics today was also a great US Olympic moment. To put the team ahead of her personal goals was magnificent. She is the ideal that all Olympians should strive for.
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I'll never forget the 2002 women's hockey final. We were supposed to be in the church having a celebration with the World Youth Day Cross, and we were. But we'd been watching the TV right until we had to leave, last minute, and then listening on the radio as we drove. Someone stayed outside to listen to the radio, and when the game finally ended, came in to tell us we'd won. I watched the excitement and smiles spread through the church.
I think we all felt a little bad, because of the cross and all. But we won!
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Well given that reason for stripping their medals, I think it's unlikely the athletes didn't know what could happen to them according to the rules, Irami...but it's possible.
And in any case, the drastic penalty (which sounds fair insofar as the rule was on the books beforehand) was probably what gave the movement its boost, not the salute itself.
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quote:Originally posted by Kayla: Much more impressive that Kerri Strug was the performance of Shun Fujimoto of Japan in 1976. . .
Strug's performance was unnecessary. This guy won his country a gold medal. I watched it happen and it was breath taking.
I remember both performances, and was going to mention Fujimoto too. That was amazing. But I was just as moved by Strug. She didn't know her performance was unnecessary.
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You know, the problem I have with them being stripped of their medals because political protests don't belong in the Olympics seems to fail to realize that the US used the Olympics as a political tool just 12 years later by boycotting altogether.
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quote: Number 2 That took a special kind of courage
Not really, considering that they knew almost all black people would revere them for it and that they would suffer no real consequences. I bet black people still buy them drinks for it, or whatever, today. Yeah. Courageous. Where is the courage when you know that you're going to be lionized and idolized for something by millions? That takes no courage. The men were no more than angry black man number 6,545,484. They were doing something that everyone else was doing that required no thought on their part and did not further the dialogue between black and white. They were automatons who surrendered their independent thought to the collective fashion of their time and people.
This feeling, by the way, seems to persist into the present.
I'd also like to point out that them running in the olympics represented the U.S. doing the right thing--you know, black and white competing equally and being rewarded for their merit instead of their color? Maybe that fact should've been acknowledged by them and celebrated?
There are heroes of racial equality who suffered for equal rights, and worked hard to advance the human condition, but these guys are not one of them.
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By this strange standard you're using, Irami, everyone in the Olympics is a beast of burden.
quote:
I don't think it was Irami that should be blamed for that particular use of words.
quote: Professor Edwards set up the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR) and appealed to all black American athletes to boycott the games to demonstrate to the world that the civil rights movement in the US had not gone far enough.
He told black Americans they should refuse "to be utilized as 'performing animals' in the games."
quote: Yeah. Courageous. Where is the courage when you know that you're going to be lionized and idolized for something by millions? That takes no courage. The men were no more than angry black man number 6,545,484. They were doing something
Seriously? Martin Luther King was idolized by millions and yet he was assassinated. Smith and Carlos both received death threats, as did their families. I think you forget what the US was like in 1968.
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First, on the Tommie Smith/Juan Carlos thing: certainly, the demonstration is not generally held against Smith today, even here in the very conservative San Joaquin Valley, where he was born and raised. Oh, I'm sure there are some extreme conservatives who are still upset about it, but in the main it is no longer an issue.
Now, for favorite Olympic moments...I really enjoyed watching Shaun White win the snowboarding yesterday.
2002 - Sarah Hughes being told that she had won the gold in women's figure skating and just shaking her head no in disbelief, because the conventional wisdom was that she couldn't win.
And my nominee for the most ignominious moment: 1994, after the women's singles figure skating competition. When they were waiting for the the medals to be presented, there was a delay. Nancy Kerrigan, who had won silver after the whole knee-whacking thing, was overheard to say about Oksana Baiul, who had won the gold, something to the effect that there was no use for her to put on more makeup, that she'd just start crying again. I thought that was fairly poor sportsmanship.
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Well, maybe it would take a whole lot of courage for me to do it. I think I can, but from my experience of these sorts of situations, I'd do it, palms sweating, thinking, "Oh God, Oh God, I hope I'm doing the right thing, Oh God," and then be a wreck for a good ten-days afterwards second guessing myself.
Again, I'm going to recommend Profiles in Courage, where Kennedy talks about these exact qualities, except in Kennedy's case, his Senators usually got voted out of office the next term, were never elected again, hated by their community and the state that elected them, and then thirty years later, or on their obituary, they are finally given credit for saving Federalism, or something. These issues are tricky just because they aren't forced decisions, they aren't life or death decisions. Right or wrong is up to the angels, and you are arrogating they authority for even thinking about performing the actions.
These are the sorts of issues that have to do with dignity, not the basic means of life, and and in a way, the stakes are much higher.
_____
Rakeesh,
Does it really matter whether they thought their medals would be stripped?
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quote:Michelle Kwan pulling out of the Olympics today was also a great US Olympic moment. To put the team ahead of her personal goals was magnificent. She is the ideal that all Olympians should strive for.
I thought she pulled out because there is something wrong with her groin muscle.
If they thought their medals would be stripped, then obviously it would lend more media and political weight to their action. It would highlight their cause.
I'm just pointing out that these athletes weren't hapless victims. They didn't just give the Black Power salute innocently, unaware of its status in the Olympics. They were willing to sacrifice their Olympic gold medals in exchange for furthering their cause. That is a noble, heroic action, and I think we should understand it for what it is.
As for Kwan, she pulled out because there was something wrong with her groin muscle, and if she competed she knew she would not have done well, thus harming her team's chances. I think you're probably aware of that, but you're reducing it to a muscle-pull. It's my understanding that she would've been permitted in if she'd decided to, taking a terrible chance that her muscle problem would flare up and cause her to mess up.
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quote:As for Kwan, she pulled out because there was something wrong with her groin muscle, and if she competed she knew she would not have done well, thus harming her team's chances. I think you're probably aware of that, but you're reducing it to a muscle-pull. It's my understanding that she would've been permitted in if she'd decided to, taking a terrible chance that her muscle problem would flare up and cause her to mess up.
I didn't get the feeling that it was a matter of of her not doing well, as much as she couldn't compete. There are some things you just can't do with a hurt groin muscle and figure skate at this level is one of them. These young women only land 3/4ths of their jumps when everything is working. Even if she doped up on pain killers, that screws with your sense of balance, and she still wouldn't have the power. An individual sport like this isn't like football or basketball when you play hurt. The difference between the best and the 400th in the world is a groin injury. I just don't see the magnanomy in the decision. I see a champion with an injury. If she could have competed, she would have, but she can't so she didn't.
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Michael Johnson, at the Atlanta summer games, winning the 200M race by a huge margin, setting a new (at the time) world record. Amazing run.
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1)Miracle on Ice game. Not just the game, the entire situation. Just huge.
2)'96 Atlanta games, when an American runner for the 400 or 800 or something tore his hamstring during the race. He refused to let the trainers help him as he hobbled down the track. Then his dad comes out of the stands and helps him across the finish line. I seriously had to go to a different window just now so I didn't start crying at work.
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