Olympics Highs and Lows ( part 2 )

RePosted
Friday, August 8, 2008; 12:00 AM

1968: Fists in the Air

After winning gold and bronze medals in the 200-meter race at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, Americans Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in the Black Panther salute as the Star Spangled Banner played. They were booed as they left the podium and expelled from the Games. The Post's reaction was mixed:

"[I]t is sad that two young American Negroes chose to become propagandists at the moment of their greatest triumph. Regardless of the depth or the rightness of the feelings they expressed in their silent protest, the time and place were wrong. Political protest -- be they for black power, white supremacy, or national independence -- have no place in the Olympics unless the individual is to be submerged into the state and the Games are to become what they should not be -- competitions between nations.

"Once that is said, it must be added that Tommie Smith and John Carlos carried out their demonstration for black power with the greatest possible drama and dignity. Mr. Smith's comments afterwards about what they had done and why they had done it were eloquent statements of what he believes. It is unfortunate that he feels the way he does about the United States just as it is unfortunate there are conditions that lead him to that feeling. But the mere fact he dared to demonstrate it underlines the greatness of the nation in which he lives. To how many other countries in the world would an athlete who made such a protest dare to return?

"There was no such display of greatness by the U.S. Olympic Committee which banished the two men from the team and ordered them home. The complaint by the International Olympic Committee that the two had introduced politics into the Games rang hollow and should have been dismissed with a simple apology. Politics has almost always blemished the Olympics and is deeply involved in this year's Games."

-- "The Olympic Spirit," Oct. 20, 1968

1972: Killers in Munich

During the second week of the Munich games, eight Palestinian gunmen took the Olympic team from Israel hostage and ultimately killed eleven Israeli athletes and coaches. The Post editorial board wrote:

"The Palestinians planned their operation better for publicity than success. They failed to consider that, on principle, Israel does not submit to terrorists' blackmail; for this reason alone, the operation could not have succeeded. Earlier, they further erred by killing two Israelis -- who, characteristically, resisted -- and thereby devalued their own hand: a dead hostage is worthless. The Palestinians further failed to consider how they would pass the files of marksmen which the Germans were sure to put in place. They did not understand that the special German purpose in hosting the 1972 Olympics -- to atone for the 1936 "Nazi Olympics" in which Germans humiliated, among others, Jews -- made it virtually certain that [German] Chancellor Brandt would not countenance any faintly similar stain....

"Fortunately for the host of non-violent Palestinians, their welfare and political future do not depend on the deeds of the few psychopaths among them....

"It is terrible that bloodshed interrupted the Olympics in Munich, but less and less can such episodes clog the incipient flow of Jewish-Palestinian accommodation in the Mideast."

-- "An Olympic Tragedy," Sept. 6, 1972

1980: Unrest on Lake Placid

Shortly before the U.S. would boycott the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow in protest of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan, the winter Olympics took place in Lake Placid, New York. It marked the first time that China would compete in the games in nearly 50 years. Taiwan, however, was notably absent, because it refused to fly a Chinese flag or be called "Chinese Taipei," which China had insisted upon to the International Olympic Committee. (Taiwan will be competing at the Games this year, and marching in the ceremony under its own flag.)

Source : http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/07/AR2008080702180_2.html?wpisrc=newsletter&sid=ST2008080703094&pos=