Olympic turning points

The Olympic Games are a bottomless well of inspiring stories. But like anything that involves people, its evolution has been directed by the flaws and foibles of people. The following events are examples of how something as grand as the Games can be impacted by a small number of people.

Letting women in. After the inaugural Games in 1896, women were allowed to participate in Paris in 1900. (Paris will also be the site of the 2024 edition.) Out of a little over a thousand athletes, only 22 were women. They competed in only five sports: croquet, equestrian, golf, sailing and tennis. But, throughout history, women’s sports were limited or merely scaled-down versions of men’s sports, like the previous 3,000-meter run compared to the men’s 5,000 meters, and the heptathlon instead of the decathlon. There are very few sports - like equestrian and sailing – where women can compete head-to-head against men.

A unified world. The Olympic Games have always had spectacular opening and closing ceremonies. These lavish productions showcase the history, art, culture and sporting heritage of the host country. They parade their world-class entertainers, athletes, inventions and achievements. However, the closing, like the opening, always had the countries parading in a certain order, and separately. In 1956, 16-year old Australian-Chinese John Ian Wing wrote a letter to the International Olympic Committee. He suggested that if the spirit of the Olympics was the unity of humanity, why not have the athletes parade together as one nation at the closing? Since that edition of the Games in Melbourne, that has been the practice. Wing had written the letter anonymously, but revealed his identity three decades later.

Ben Johnson. Canadian-Jamaican sprinter Ben Johnson had seemingly worked his way cleanly to the zenith of Olympic glory. In the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, he could only manage bronzes against the American runners, led by rival Carl Lewis. In the next few years, however, things seemingly changed. By 1987, Johnson had won his last four races against Lewis, breaking the world record. Lewis knew something was amiss, and said so to the BBC. Johnson called it sour grapes. On September 24, 1988, Johnson shaved his own 100-meter world record down to 9.79 seconds, and became the first Canadian sprinter to win Olympic gold in 60 years. Then the Olympic Doping Control Center discovered the forbidden agent stanozolol in his urine, and his records from the previous two years were all rescinded. Because of this, Lewis would get more medals, and eventually share Mark Spitz’s record of nine Olympic gold medals before Michael Phelps came along.

Atlanta, 1996. In the early morning of July 27, this writer was walking through Centennial Park with my colleague and roommate Ron de los Reyes and our media liaison Greg Fitzgerald. We had just taken a short breather after a hectic week of covering events daily from early morning until past midnight. The park had been built for round-the-clock open-air entertainment for tourists who had no tickets to games, but who wanted to be part of the Olympic experience. It was surrounded by the Georgia Convention Center (which served as the international media center), CNN’s headquarters, the Omni and the Georgia Dome. As music from a live band blared, an explosion shattered the night air. Everything stopped. Police waded into the park, bodily throwing people out. Ron and I nodded at each other, and made an adrenaline-fueled dash towards the direction of  the explosion. It became a global event that destroyed the life of wrongfully-accused security man Richard Jewell 25 years ago.

More Olympic stories in a future column.