Tokyo Olympics: will they, won't they?

We are just two months away from the opening date of the 2020 Olympic Games and one thing is clear: the resistance to the Games is growing. A petition to cancel the Olympics received a quarter million signatures in just one day.

The rationale is that the pandemic is far from over and pursuing the Games would be denying their very own purpose of “celebrating peace”. Moreover, restrictive regulations will likely put athletes under extreme stress.

Speaking about restrictive regulations one must refer to what is called the Olympic Playbook for athletes and officials. (It's funny that the IOC, while talking about the "playbooks" and their content, points out that they are in fact "rulebooks", which indeed they are. So, why on earth, use this ridiculous, marketing-inspired, "playbook" moniker?).  And the regulations as delineated in the playbooks are restrictive indeed.

-All participants are required to take two COVID-19 tests before their flight to Japan.

-In principle, athletes and all those in close proximity with athletes will be tested daily to minimise the risk of undetected positive cases that could transmit the virus. The dates and times will be set in line with the sports events and schedule.

-All other Games participants will be tested daily for three days after their arrival. After the first three days and throughout their stay, they will be tested regularly, based on the operational nature of their role and level of contact with athletes.

-All Games participants must, in principle, only follow the activities they have outlined in their activity plan. They must minimise contact within one metre of Games participants who have already been in Japan for more than 14 days, and Japanese residents.

-All Games participants must, in principle, exclusively use dedicated Games vehicles, and they are not allowed to use public transport.

-All Games participants must, in principle, eat only in the limited locations where COVID-19 countermeasures are in place, including catering facilities at Games venues, their accommodation's restaurant, and their rooms, using room service or food delivery.

World Athletics have issued a set of rules where some are useful, like, 

In combined events, the room used by athletes to recover between disciplines should be open-air, if possible. Coaches should be encouraged to interact with their athletes using electronic devices.

 but many utterly ridiculous, like,

-starting blocks should be cleaned between each race

- chlorine should be added to the water jump for the steeplechase

- relay batons should be cleaned between each use, and relay teams should be discouraged from gathering or hugging after a race

- the use of hand sanitiser should be recommended before each attempt in vertical jumps

- officials should clean the landing mat between each jump, using a mop and virucidal solution or use a thin layer of recyclable plastic or tissue that can be placed on the jumping mats and in jumping pits should be mixed with a solution that contains biodegradable and non-skin-aggressive virucide agent (N.B. the syntax of the sentence is the original one)

- officials who handle throwing implements should clean their hands or use disposable gloves after each handling

(If you wonder why I consider these measures ridiculous I suggest you read the "Hygiene Theater" by D. Thompson).

But the main difficulty with the Olympics is that they will not be possible without the help from healthcare workers, medical institutions, and other medical resources. Many medical professionals have already stated publicly that there is no room for more medical demands.

A friend of mine living in Tokyo sent me a photo of a hospital where one can read: "the hospitals have reached their limits", "stop the Games" and "it's impossible to organise the Games".

The authors of the petition point out that the lack of medical resources that Tokyo and the rest of Japan is suffering from (do not forget that Japan is trailing last among developed countries in per capita vaccinations) should suggest just how much the Games will cause danger and fear to healthcare workers, citizens, and participants.

Meanwhile, Tokyo is in a state of emergency as I write these lines.

I am not a fan of the Games. If they are held, I will be in front of the tv watching the athletics competitions. And if they are cancelled, I just hope that World Athletics will draw their consequences and distance themselves from the Olympics.

The long and arduous road of women to the Olympics, part one

Women had not always been welcome in the Olympics. Quite the contrary. 

The story starts more than 120 years ago when Charles Pierre Fredy, Baron de Coubertin proposed to reinstate the Olympic Games (without really understanding what the ancient Olympics were about). Some other times I will tell the story of the olympic revival, but for the time being it suffices to say that, thanks to Greece, the modern Olympics saw the light of the day.

The Panathenaic Stadium in Athens

For de Coubertin the situation was clear: women had no place in the Olympics. Their role should be limited to "crowning the champions, as in the tournaments of olden". He had not planned for the admission of women, did not want women to be admitted, and fought against their admission for more than thirty years. He was opposed to it from the inception of the Games to his dying day. For him the Games were “the solemn and periodic exaltation of male athleticism, with internationalism as a base, loyalty as a means, art for its setting, and female applause as reward”. The inclusion of women in the Games would be "impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic, and incorrect".

The opening ceremony in the Panathenaic stadium

At the first modern Olympic Games in Athens 1896, no women competed. I ran across some mention of planned female participation in sailing during the 1896 Olympics, but there has been no sailing competition in Athens (it was cancelled due to weather conditions and lack of time). As a matter of fact I think that this is not even an urban myth but simply an erroneous writing which is being re-reported from time to time. (It is probably due to a confusion with the 1900 Games where there was indeed one female participant in the yachting competition).

Even though women were excluded from the 1896 Olympic Games, a woman did run, unofficially, the marathon. Of course, no women were allowed to participate alongside the men, but a woman did run the marathon course the day after the men's race. In a future post of mine I will tell the story of the first female marathoner (who, as chance would have it, is greek).

After Athens, the Games took place in Paris. In fact those were the Games de Coubertin had been wishing for all along. But he was caught off guard by the enthusiasm of the Greek and had to acquiesce and let them organise the first Games. The Paris 1900 Olympics were a joke. There was nothing "olympic" about them. The year was that of the Exposition Universelle and the competitions were organised as part of this huge event. Neither de Coubertin nor the Comité d'Organisation des Jeux Olympiques had any saying concerning the content of the sports events. In fact the IOC had to decide, much later, which of the events held in Paris were "olympic" and which not. So, nobody asked de Coubertin what was his opinion about the participation on women in the 1900 Games. As a conclusion 22 women (out of 997 participants) did take part. Of course their participation was limited to so-called feminine sports, the former leisure activities of the aristocracy: sailing, croquet (!) tennis, and golf (but only in the last two figured individual women's events). Margaret Abbott won the women's golf tournament but to the day of her death she was ignoring that she had won an olympic title.

Women's boxing in St. Louis

Four years later in Saint Louis there was again a World Fair, and again the Olympic Games organising committee was largely ignored. So, there were again women participating in the Games ... but in a sole event, archery. A funny remark is in order here. Boxing was present in St. Louis as a demonstration sport, and it included also female boxers. It goes without saying that when boxing was admitted in the Olympics only the men's discipline did make it, since women's boxing was deemed to be a 'health risk'.

The inclusion of women in the Olympics was a source of sadness for de Coubertin. Fortunately for him, just before his demise he obtained a great satisfaction with the Olympic Games in Berlin. While many people were demanding a boycott, de Coubertin was a fervent supporter of the nazi regime, singing praises to the Führer. For him the Nazi Olympics were "illuminated with Hitler's strength and discipline and should serve as a model for the subsequent Games". Hitler returned the favour by proposing de Coubertin for the Nobel Peace Prize. (de Coubertin did not get it: the committee preferred an anti-nazi german journalist).

Is this a nazi salute next to the Baron? (I hope not)

After two Olympics with feminine presence it was too late for de Coubertin to back out. Oh, he did try. He argued that "women engaging in strenuous sports were destroying their feminine charm". His reaction to the first match of women's fencing was that "such competitions would lead to the feminisation and the downfall of this noble discipline". When the swedish organising committee decided to include women's aquatics in the 1912 Games he argued that "women's performance would prove totally ineffective and not worth the effort to include them". And since there was at the time a movement to initiate a female Olympiad he pointed out that (to his opinion) such a manifestation "would arouse no public interest".

As stressed by historian S. Mitchell, if de Coubertin's authority was manifested at all levels, women would never have competed in the Olympic Games. But since (at least at the beginning) the responsibility and freedom to decide a program fell on the organising committee, women's competitions were permitted to develop against de Coubertin's expressed will.

And thus women started, in dribs and drabs, entering the Games. The road ahead was long and the resistance they would meet enormous. But this is a story we shall tell in a future post.

World relays (once more, a so-so event)

Reporting on the 2019 edition of the World Relays I was pointing out that they were not as good as expected. Unfortunately the same is true about the 2021 event. However, after a year with very few competitions, even a so-so one is something one can enjoy.

The main problem of the World Relays is not only that some countries are not sending their best teams, but that some are not participating at all. This was the case this year with the total absence of US teams. Add to this the fact that Jamaica and Canada did withdraw at the last moment and you can see why I consider this year's competition an, at best, mediocre one. 

World Athletics is trying to promote World Relays making the competition a qualifying for the World Championships and the Olympics. The first 8 teams of the previous (Doha 2019) World Championships are automatically qualified for the Tokyo Olympics. The remaining 8 places are given to the finalists of the World Relays. (And if there is some overlap between the two lists, then the places go to teams which are best ranked at the end of the qualification period). For the 2022 World championships the World Relays act as sole qualifying competition with the best 10 teams (and 12 in the mixed 4x400 m) getting a ticket for Eugene.

The first day had only two finals, the 2x2x400 m relay and the shuttle. The 2x2x400 m is an exciting race. The athletes must pace themselves in a most accurate way, since they must run two very demanding 400 m with just a minute of rest. The team of Poland with Jozwik and Dobek dominated the event. For Dobek, who is a low-hurdles specialist, this is a world title after his indoor european one over 800 m. Does this signal a beginning of a new career?

The mixed shuttle is a joke. If there is one event that should never be run by a mixed team that's the shuttle hurdle relay. This year there were even fewer teams than in 2019, just three, and the presence of Kenya in an essentially sprint event is, well, surprising. It is high time for World Athletics to abandon this un-natural event and either have shuttle relays separately for each sex or imagine something else. How about a 2x2x400 m hurdle (if having a mixed relay is a priority) or 4x400 m hurdles. In my article on hurdle relays I explained how this can be done in practice.

Cuba won the women's 4x400 m relay having already dominated the heats. I was somewhat disappointed by the 4th place of Netherland, who had won the european indoor championships head and shoulders. (F. Bol ran the two best splits in both the heats, 49.81, and the final, 50.58, but that did not suffice). At least the men's team from Holland managed to bring the gold medal home in the same race.

If there was one team who was the uncontested favourite, that was the women's dutch team of 4x100 m. And still they managed to lose in the final. Just look at the advance they have at the last baton hand-over. Unfortunately Sedney who was anchoring the relay started too early and Visser could not catch her. So the gold medal went to Italy and the dutch team had to content themselves with the bronze medal.

The men's 4x100 race was a massacre. Only four teams were classified in the final, the victory going to South Africa (who did indeed beat Brazil on the finish line). The Italian team who was the favourite, having finished 4th (thanks to two very bad relay exchanges) obtained a medal thanks to the disqualifications. 

It goes without saying that the rarely run (and not qualifying) events, like the 4x200 m relay, do not attract many participants. But they are nice races, and quite different technically from the classical distances. Ecuador obtained its first medal in a major championship finishing 3rd in the women's 4x200 m (and also, with the same team of four, qualified for the 4x100 m for both Tokyo and Eugene). Quite justifiably the next day El Comercio saluted this success titling "Histórica medalla de bronce para Ecuador en 4x200 en el Mundial de Relevos".  

The mixed 4x400 m was a beauty. Apart from France who ran w-w-m-m in the heats, all teams now run in what I consider optimal m-w-w-m. Should World Athletics regulate this and fix the order to athletes? Perhaps. Be that as it may, Italia won the heats and the final, where I did appreciate a superb second leg by Trevisan. Dominican Republic obtained the bronze medal in a race where most teams registered best times in the series compared to the final. (The explanation should be sought in the fact that the weather was freezing cold over the whole week-end).

The next World Relays will be held in 2023 and the venue will be decided this summer.

Women and the Olympics

The IOC announced that the 2024, Paris, Olympics will, for the first time in history, see a perfect parity between men and women participants. More than a century after the modern Olympic Games were created, women will cease being the "poor relatives" and obtain at last the recognition they deserve. 

The story of women's participation in the Olympics is a long and rather sad one. They had to fight the ambient misogynism during decades. Every time they obtained something, malicious members of the dominant caste tried to get it back (and in many occasions they did succeed). 

Charlotte Cooper was the first 

individual female olympic champion

And I am not talking here about athletics. That was considered a no-no for women. The appearance of women on the track, attired in shorts and wearing their hair short was considered giving them a "masculine" look. Most probably even today there are people who feel that some events such as the shot put, are not appropriate for women. A. Brundage, to whom I have devoted a long post was one of those. In private correspondence, as late as 1949, he wrote: 

"I think it is quite well known that I am lukewarm on most of the events for women for a number of reasons which I will not bother to expound because I probably will be out voted anyway. I think women's event should be confined to those appropriate for women; swimming, tennis, figure skating and fencing but certainly not shot putting".

Admittedly C. Ibargüen is no shot putter (although she has a 13.79 m PB). 

Still, I am sure Brundage would not have been favourable to her participation in the Olympics

In a series of seven articles I intend to tell the story of how the women managed to conquer the Olympics. The road has been long and arduous. And sown with traps. But they prevailed.