Finally, justice is done

I have written time and again on Jim Thorpe. To eyes he is the best decathlete ever, bar none. In an article written two years ago I was asking "Will the injustice towards Thorpe stop one day?". I wrote that article when I discovered that Thorpe did not appear among the athletes' list compiled by World Athletics.

Well, that injustice had since been remedied. And I will not be angry with the fact that all his sprint as well as the long jump performances are labeled as "non-legal". I guess that this is automatic when there exist no wind-speed measurements.

But a major injustice remained. Thorpe (Bright Path being his Sax & Fox Nation name) competed in the combined events in the 1912 Olympics and won both the pentathlon and the decathlon. He dominated the first, winning four of the five events and was third in the javelin (an event, the existence of which he ignored before the US Trials). He equally dominated the decathlon winning also four events, including the 1500 m, a feat that was not repeated till 2019 when N. Kaul won the World Championships (in a decathlon where we was first in the discus, javelin and the 1500 m moving from 11th after the first day to the first position, unlike Thorpe who took the command of the event after the shot put).

During the award ceremony King Gustav V of Sweden presented Thorpe with the gold medal and famously told him: “You, sir, are the greatest athlete in the world”. 

However a few months later, in 1913, Thorpe was stripped of his titles after it was found that, before competing in the Olympics, he had played semi-professional baseball, thus violating the contemporary amateurism rules. In its zeal to punish Thorpe, the IOC broke its own rules: the procedures in place specified that any investigation into an athlete’s amateur status must begin within 30 days of the competition. The delay was not respected but the IOC was unyielding. Perhaps the fact that Thorpe was a Native American (American Indian for those who do not understand the politically correct term) might have played a role in the decision of the IOC to make him an example. (At the time Thorpe when won his gold medals, not all Native Americans were recognised as U.S. citizens. Citizenship was not granted to all American Indians until 1924).

 Thorpe fought this injustice but to no avail. The fact that A. Brundage, a mediocre athlete certainly jealous of Thorpe's talent, was now the big boss of the IOC made sure that Thorpe was not reinstated during his living.  Thorpe died in 1953 at 65 years of age. 

But the fight for justice was not over. And in 1983 the IOC relented. They were based on a technicality, i.e. the fact that the 30-day delay was not respected. And, the IOC being what they are, they restored the medals but declared Thorpe co-winner(!) of the two combined events. 

So the injustice towards Thorpe was perpetuated. The denouement had to wait for 40 more years. Following a campaign by the Bright Path advocacy group, supported by IOC member Anita DeFrantz, Thorpe was, in July 2022, recognised as the olympic champion of both combined events. In fact Hugo Wieslander had never accepted the decathlon gold medal offered to him after Thorpe's disqualification, believing that Thorpe was the sole legitimate gold medalist. And in the name of Ferdinand Bie (who was second after Thorpe), the Norwegian Olympic Committee declared that Thorpe and not Bie was the winner of the pentathlon. At long last justice was done.

New Studies in Athletics: 1986-2017

I was planning for quite some time now to write a post on the IAAF/WA scientific journal that was shut down recently.

But let us start at the beginning. In 1984 the IAAF Council appointed a scientific working group with the ask of producing a journal focusing on the technical aspects of athletics. The go-ahead for the creation of the journal was given the next year and the name of  “New Studies in Athletics” was chosen. 

The Editor in Chief of NSA was none other than the IAAF president at the time, Dr. Primo Nebiolo. The first issue of NSA saw the light in 1986. And the first article published contained the biographies of the editorial board members, the first "technical" article being one on blood transfusion in athletics.

The following lines are taken from the IAAF presentation of NSA:

Among the existing technical publications, NSA has established itself as a much respected international journal and illustrates the importance the IAAF attaches to scientific and coaching information.

Most of the articles published have been original contributions and provide a valuable source of information for coaches combining the scientific theory, such as biomechanics, with the practical application.

This high level of information comes with an excellent standard of production. NSA is an attractively designed publication with an impressive selection of quality coloured photographs. An essential publication in the coaching world designed with coaches in mind.

And here is the photo of one of the covers

My involvement with NSA had to do with the fact that from time to time I was producing research work on questions related to athletics with results warranting a full publication. Looking for an appropriate journal in which to publish I stumbled upon NSA and between 2007 and 2014 I published four articles (one in collaboration with Y. Charon).

And then disaster struck. World Athletics decided to shut down NSA in 2017. However since there were several articles in the pipeline they published one last volume and I had the chance to have an article of mine appear in that last issue: 

An optimal angle analysis of the 2017 World Championships' shot put event, B. Grammaticos New Stud. Athl. 32 (2017) 55.

(Don't be misled by the date. That last issue was greatly delayed, finally appearing in 2021).

Fortunately most of the articles published in NSA are available in the existing archive. Only the last 2017 volume has not been added yet but since it took almost years to get published this is not astonishing. 

Given the relative paucity of journals specialised in research in athletics (and the fact that the majority of the existing ones operate under the open access formula, whereupon the author of the article has to pay an amount in the thousands of dollars in order to see his article published) the decision of WA to shutter New Studies in Athletics is one that I deeply regret.

Those almost unknown world record(wo)men

I was intending to write this article ever since I read that Nina Schultz, a canadian heptathlete who was silver medalist at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, changed her allegiance to China and was going to represent the latter in the Tokyo 2020 Games as Ninali Zheng. 

She did indeed participate in the olympic heptathlon where she finished 10th. (Had she obtained a better result in the javelin throw she could have climbed even up to the 6th place). 

She explained her rationale behind her change of allegiance, as a tribute to her grandmother, Zheng Fengrong. Where it not for the brouhaha around Ninali's decision, very few would remember the name of Zheng Fengrong (World Athletics refer to her as Cheng Feng-Jung). She was a top quality high jumper and would have been a favourite for the 1956, Melbourne, Games. Unfortunately China boycotted the Games (a boycott that ended only in 1984 and the Los Angeles Olympics). Mildred McDaniel went on to win the olympic high jump event with a 1.76 m world record  And the following year Zheng did break it (it had in the meantime been equalled by Y. Balas) with 1.77 m. 

She went on to participate in chinese competitions winning national titles in the high jump and the pentathlon. She won silver in the 1963 and gold 1966 in the GANEFO high jump as well as gold in the pentathlon in both editions, and a bronze in the 80 m hurdles. (The GANEFO, the "GAmes of the New Emerging FOrces", were introduced in 1963 and were particularly short-lived: they were discontinued after the second, 1966, edition). 

While Zheng's performance is officially recognised as a world record this is not the case for Ni ChihChin's 2.29 m jump in 1970. (I discovered that he is now transliterated as Ni Zhiqin). In the meantime People's Republic of Chine had lost their membership in the IAAF (what World Athletics was called at the time) and so although his performance is mentioned in the WA's progression of World Records book just after V. Brumel's 2.28 m record it is clear that it is not an official record. 

There is an interesting note accompanying Ni's performance. After his successful jump his comment was: “If my jumps were as high as the thoughts of Chairman Mao, I would need a fireman’s ladder to measure them”. (While Ni could not have his name in the official record book, another chinese did succeed a decade later: Zhu Jianhua who between 1983 and 1984 improved the record thrice with 2.37, 2.37 and 2.39 m. Zhu won bronze in both the 1983 World's and the 1984 Olympics). Ni did also participate in the GANEFO winning both times with a quite respectable 2.27 m the second time (and 32 cm better than the silver medalist).

It turned out that the GANEFO were central to the stories I set out to tell in this post of mine, since the third athlete I am going to write about had also participated in them with great success. Sin Kim-dan (or Shin Keum-dan) won the 200, 400 and 800 m in both editions.

She came into the limelight in 1960 when she broke the 400 m world record with 53.0 s. She equalled this time in the Znamensky Memorial competition in Moscow in 1962. Neither of these records was ratified. On the contrary her 51.9 s record established later the same year became an official world record and was not beaten till those memorable 1969 European Championships in Piraeus, where N. Duclos and C. Besson ran in 51.7 s. Sin had in the meantime improved, unofficially, her records to 51.4 s (during the 1963 GANEFO) and to 51.2 s a year later in Pyongyang . Sin was also an excellent 800 m runner but none of her world records was homologated: she registered a 2:01.2 in 1961, 1:59.1 in 1963 during the GANEFO and finally 1:58.0 in 1964 (to compare to Ann Parker's 2:01.1 during the Tokyo Olympics of the same year). The GANEFO were not simply a competition not approved by the IAAF but one which was seriously frowned upon to the point that the GANEFO participants were suspended from the Tokyo Olympics. So when Sin arrived to Japan in order to participate in the Games she was driven back and could only spend a few minutes with her father in the airport. (They had been separated during the Korean War, Sin remaining in North Korea while her father lived in South Korea).

Speaking about Sin's father there is an interesting story related in an article on gender verification in sports published in Time magazine in 1966. According to this article an old man living in South Korea claimed that Sin is his son, who had disappeared during the war. What is really funny is that I found the same allegations in a romanian article where they talk about the "10 women-men in the history of the Olympics" (although some of the athletes cited in the article, including Sin, haven't participated in the Olympics). And the last name in the list is none other than Iolanda Balas, the great romanian high jumper. The article is clearly inaccurate since it states "after the controls were implemented in 1960, the romanian Iolanda Balas refused to compete in the Olympics". Balas did win the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo with a 1.90 m jump. 

In the upper photo  Sin  Kim-dan (left)  

together with  Balas and Press

I don't know if one should attach any importance to the romanian article, at least as far as Balas is concerned. After her retirement she married her ex-coach Ioan Soter. She passed away in 2016. Shortly after her demise I published a post on scissors high jump which was a tribute to her memory. Is it because we can see her in the company of Sin Kim-dan and Irina Press during the Znamensky Memorials? In any case Balas' is a name that every athletics fan does immediately recognise. This is less true as far as Cheng Fengrong, Sin Kim-dan and Ni ChihChin are concerned. I just hope that this short article of mine will convince you that they should also be part of the athletics history.

A brief history of the IAAF/WA scoring tables: Women's combined events

Women started participating in combined events quite early. Already in the 1930 Women's World Games a triathlon appeared in the program. It comprised 100 m, high jump and javelin throw. And K. Hitomi, obtained the silver medal in the event (despite being a so-so high jumper).

Speaking of javelin throw, I discovered some astonishing photos while perusing old archives. It is clear that in the 1922 and 1926 World Games, as well as in the 1924 women's Olympiad, both the shot put and the javelin throw were two-handed, i.e. the classification was obtained on the basis of the addition of throws with the right and with the left hands. But what I did not now is that, at that time, the women were throwing in what was considered the "free style". The photo below is that of Francesca Pianzola who won the event in 1922 and the style is unambiguously not the classical, "greek" style. (Many more photos of that period do exist, showing women throwing in that style).

The classification of the 1930 triathlon was most probably based on the german tables, where the top score corresponded to 100 points.

By 1934 the triathlon was replaced by a pentathlon, comprising 100 m, high jump, long jump, javelin and shot put. The world record established in 1934 was homologated in 1938 and in 1946 the pentathlon appeared in the IAAF rules for women's athletics. This did not settle the matter and the various countries continued organising combined events with rules and scoring varying from country to country. The pentathlon was initially organised over two days but in the 70s it became the rule to complete it in one day. (The latter is true for the indoor pentathlon today, which, I believe adds to the event's appeal). Long jump was always one of the events and almost always high jump as well. Hurdles were introduced in 1949 and persisted thereafter. Not astonishingly (see my post on the events of the 1928 Olympiad), the 800 m, which was initially part of the pentathlon, disappeared after 1940.

But it soon became clear that the pentathlon was somewhat too light an event, in comparison with the decathlon. So some countries experimented with octathlon and even enneathlon (but with track events being 100, 200 and 800 m). And finally when it was decided to revamp the women's combined events, the IAAF hierarchy (who are probably always convinced of women's inferiority, while talking about parity and equality) decided to force upon women an amputated combined event in the form of the heptathlon. 

I have written, time and again, in support of a decathlon for women. Unfortunately I am afraid that this may never happen, despite the efforts of the great female decathlete, J. Gray. Women are also responsible for this, the heptathlete elite being reluctant to relinquish their supremacy by venturing into the unknown (and admittedly perilous) terrain of the decathlon.

But let us go back to scoring. Already in the 1920s Germany and USSR had developed scoring tables, and used them for the national pentathlon championships. The german tables were 100-point ones and were used in the women's World Games in 1930 and 1934. There were no combined events neither in the 1938 nor in the 1946 European championships, the pentathlon (Shot put, high jump, 200 m, 80 m hurdles and long jump) making its appearance in the 1950 European's (but had to wait till 1964, before becoming an olympic event). The scoring was based on french tables  which were globally progressive (but which, for practical reasons, were piecewise linear).

At the beginning of the 50s it became apparent that women's athletics could not be ignored any more. Much to the disappointment of the IOC president A. Brundage, women would continue competing in sports. And thus it became necessary to produce scoring tables for women. A. Jörbeck was by that time the person taking care of scoring in the IAAF and, having discovered the theories of K. Ulbrich, he applied them on the scoring tables for women. The tables were accepted in 1954 and lasted for 30 years.   

In the World Athletics history of scoring one encounters a rather ambiguous language when it comes to Jörbeck. On the one hand they laud him stating that "he applied Ulbrich's theories with great judgement and moderation". But then they point out the flaw in Ulbrich's approach and segue into: "It is a measure of Jörbeck's skill...that this weakness has lain dormant for so many years". Be that as it may, combined events, both for men and women, did suffer from the IAAF misguided decisions for a full quarter century.

Before ending this post I would like to make clear that it is not only the women's heptathlon that I do not like. I also find men's indoor heptathlon an unnatural event (which is totally unbalanced with three jumps and one throw). In fact the ideal indoor combined event for men would be a one-day pentathlon just as in the case of women. And since I like parity, either have the men run a 800 m or increase the distance of the women's final event to 1000 m (with a slight preference for the latter). But, of course, one can only dream.