XXV Olympiad

George Constable

Description

XXV Olympiad, the twenty-third volume in The Olympic Century series, begins with the story of the Barcelona Summer Games of 1992. The Barcelona Games were the first without boycotts since 1972, and played host to a wealth of nations participating for the first time.The book explores how the Barcelona Games reflected a rapidly changing world. With the devolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Barcelona played host to teams from the Baltic States and to a "Unified Team" made up of athletes from the former Soviet republics. The former member states of Yugoslavia participated as independent nations, and South Africa was welcomed back into the Olympic fold for the first time since 1960. The book also profiles heroes of Barcelona like the Chinese diver Fu Mingxia, who became the youngest-ever Olympic gold medalist at age 13; and Vitaly Scherbo of Belarus, who won four golds in artistic gymnastics in a single day.Following Barcelona, the book turns its focus to the 1994 Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway, the first Winter Games not held in the same year as the Summer Games. Lillehammer featured aerial skiing as a full event for the first time, and saw Australia win its first ever Winter Olympic medal. The book also tells the story of the drama swirling around the women's figure skating competition, where Americans Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding battled with eventual gold-medal winner Oksana Baiul of Ukraine.Juan Antonio Samaranch, former President of the International Olympic Committee, called The Olympic Century, "The most comprehensive history of the Olympic games ever published".

Informations

• Publié par: Warwick Press Inc.
• Date de parution: 18 novembre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781987944228
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 10 Mo

Extrait

THE OLYMPIC CENTURY THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF THE MODERN OLYMPIC MOVEMENT VOLUME 23
THE XXV OLYMPIAD
BARCELONA 1992 LILLEHAMMER 1994
by George G. Constable
W
Warwick Press Inc. Toronto
Copyright 1996 WSRP
The Olympic Century series was produced as a joint effort among the International Olympic Committee, the United States Olympic Committee, and World Sport Research Publications, to provide an official continuity series that will serve as a permanent on-line Olympic education program for individuals, schools, and public libraries.
Published by:
Warwick Press Inc., Toronto
www.olympicbooks.com
1st Century Project: Charles Gary Allison
Publishers: Robert G. Rossi, Jim Williamson, Rona Wooley
Editors: Christian D. Kinney, Laura Forman
Art Director: Christopher M. Register
Picture Editors: Lisa Bruno, Debora Lemmons
Digital Imaging: Richard P. Majeske
Associate Editor, Research: Mark Brewin
Associate Editor, Appendix: Elsa Ramirez
Designers: Kimberley Davison, Diane Myers, Chris Conlee
Staff Researchers: Brad Haynes, Alexandra Hesse, Pauline Ploquin
Copy Editor: Harry Endrulat
Venue Map Artist: Dave Hader, Studio Conceptions, Toronto
Fact Verification: Carl and Liselott Diem Archives of the German Sport University at Cologne, Germany
Statistics: Bill Mallon, Walter Teutenberg
Memorabilia Consultants: Manfred Bergman, James D. Greensfelder, John P. Kelly, James B. Lally, Ingrid O Neil
Office Staff: Diana Fakiola, Brian M. Heath, Edward J. Messier, Brian P. Rand, Robert S. Vassallo, Chris Waters
Senior Consultant: Dr. Dietrich Quanz (Germany)
Special Consultants: Walter Borgers, Dr. Karl Lennartz, Dr. Dietrich Quanz, Dr. Norbert Mueller (Germany), Ian Buchanan (United Kingdom), Wolf Lyberg (Sweden), Dr. Nicholas Yalouris (Greece).
International Contributors: Jean Durry (France), Dr. Fernand Landry (Canada), Dr. Antonio Lombardo (Italy), Dr. John A. MacAloon (U.S.A.), Dr. Jujiro Narita (Japan), C. Robert Paul (U.S.A.), Dr. Roland Renson (Belgium), Anthony Th. Bijkirk (Netherlands), Dr. James Walston (Ombudsman)
International Research and Assistance: John S. Baick (New York), Matthieu Brocart (Paris), Alexander Fakiolas (Athens), Bob Miyakawa (Tokyo), Rona Lester (London), Dominic LoTempio (Columbia), George Kostas Mazareas (Boston), Georgia McDonald (Colorado Springs), Wendy Nolan (Princeton), Alexander Ratner (Moscow), Jon Simon (Washington, D.C.), Frank Strasser (Cologne), Val ry Turco (Lausanne), Laura Walden (Rome), Jorge Zocchi (Mexico City)
All rights reserved. No part of The Olympic Century book series may be copied, republished, stored in a retrieval system, or otherwise reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without the prior written consent of the IOC, the USOC, and WSRP.
eBook Conversion: eBook Partnership, United Kingdom
ISBN 978-1-987944-24-2 (24 Volume Series)
ISBN 978-1-987944-22-8 (Volume 23)
CONTENTS
I FAREWELL, COMRADE
II SHADES AND SHADOWS
III PRIDE AND PROMINECE
IV SAINTS AND SINNERS
APPENDIX
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PHOTO CREDITS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
CATALAN DANCE
Barcelona isn t the first city of Spain, but it is the capital of Catalonia, a region with a culture and language different from the rest of the country. The opening ceremony was a colorful and lively pageant that combined the flair of Catalonia with the romance of Spain, creating a celebration of Olympism that was a fitting finale to the last Games of the first Olympic century.
Spectators were greeted with a lively sardana, a traditional Catalan welcoming dance, and it was impossible to avoid seeing La Senyera, the Catalan flag, with its vertical red-and-yellow stripes, waving throughout the stadium, and hearing the playing of EI Segadors, or The Harvesters, the Catalan national anthem. The pageant of Barcelona history included a ship (right), representing Christopher Columbus discovery of America.
The rest of Spain wasn t ignored. There were flamenco dancers, typifying the cultures of other regions of the country; and opera stars Placido Domingo, Jose Carreras, and Montserrat Caballe, who sang a medley of 17 arias from Spanish-themed operas like The Barber of Seville and Carmen.
Heroism received its due when actors staged a play depicting the adventures of Hercules. The mythical demigod battled a series of wild beasts metaphorically defending humankind against its baser instincts, much as the athletes at the Olympic Games are meant to do.
The athletes arrived at the close of the musical numbers. A record 169 delegations took their places in the stadium infield. They were greeted by Barcelona mayor Pasqual Maragall, who made a plea for peace in war-torn Yugoslavia before asking King Juan Carlos to declare the Games open.
The ceremony neared its climax when Herminio Menendez, a canoeist and three-time Olympic medal winner for Spain, jogged into the stadium with the Olympic flame. He passed it to basketball player Juan San Epifanio Ruiz, who delivered it to Antonio Rebollo, a 1984 Paralympic bronze medal winning archer, waiting with a bow and arrow.
Rebollo lighted his arrow with the flame and fired it at a cauldron stationed at the top of the stadium. The flaming arrow found its mark, igniting the bowl for a dramatic finish to what was just the start of a Games soon filled with great moments.
FAREWELL, COMRADE
BARCELONA 1992
Ex-Soviet gymnasts was the locution journalists used to describe them. It was an awkward way to characterize these three brilliant performers-awkward but inevitable, and somehow very much in the spirit of the 1992 Olympic Games at Barcelona.
Twenty-year-old Vitaly Scherbo, 21- year-old Grigori Misiutin, and 22-yearold Valery Belenky were classic products of the Soviet sports machine. They had been spotted as prospects in childhood, enrolled in special sports schools, and given the best coaching that rubles could buy. Over the years, they shared a march to stardom-living and training together, and often winning together. In the first item on the men s gymnastics program in Barcelona, for example, they jointly earned a gold medal in the two day series of compulsory and optional exercises known as the team all-around event. The next contest, however, called for togetherness to take a backseat to self. They would be battling for the individual all-around tide, striving for the highest total score in a full spectrum of gymnastic tests-e-on the horizontal bar, parallel bars, horse vault, pommeled horse, rings, and the floor exercises. To finish first in this competition was to stand alone atop the sport s highest peak.
It was easy to picture any of these three young men there-a place where great Soviet gymnasts had often stood before. But no Soviet would win the event in Barcelona. Indeed, no Soviet could win. The reason was simple: Soviets no longer existed. The previous year, the political entity known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had come unglued and been replaced-in part-by a federation of 11 former Soviet republics, pointedly known as the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Those republics-including Georgia, which declined to join the Commonwealth-had retained their sporting ties for the moment, sending their athletes to the 1992 Olympic Games in a makeshift assemblage called the Unified Team. But the name in no way implied a shared homeland. Vitaly Scherbo, for example, proudly described himself as a Belorussian. Misiutin noted that he was Ukrainian. Belenky identified himself as an Azerbaijani.
Below: Grigori Misiutin performs a routine on the pommeled horse, his worst apparatus in the all-around competition. Misiutin had the best scores of all competitors in the high bar and horse vault. He had the second-best scores on the parallel bars, rings, and floor exercises. A seventh-place finish in the pommeled horse relegated him to the silver medal.


For Olympic officials, the political fissuring of the USSR had posed some tricky questions in regard to flags and anthems. After delicate discussions, it was decided that, in the opening-day ceremonies at the Barcelona Games, athletes from the former Soviet republics would march as a group but under their own national flags. In medal-awarding ceremonies, the choice of anthem and flag would depend on whether the medal was for an individual or a team: An individual winner on the Unified Team would be honored by the appropriate republican flag and anthem; a team medal, however, would be honored by the five-ring Olympic flag and Olympic anthem (the Ode to Joy from Beethoven s Ninth Symphony). Not everyone was comfortable with this compromise. When Vitaly Scherbo heard the generic anthem played after a Unified Team victory in a pre-Olympic meet sponsored by the International Gymnastics Federation, he said, I didn t like it. I didn t know who I was competing for-the gymnastics federation, Beethoven, or what. His conclusion: We are competing for ourselves.
That Scherbo, Misiutin, and Belenky would do well in the individual all-around event was a foregone conclusion. All except Scherbo had laid claim to the title of best all-around gymnast by winning past international competitions, and Scherbo hadn t missed by much: At the gymnastic world championships the previous year, he had finished second to Misiutin. Now all three ran true to form. As the finals of the event unfolded in Barcelona, they took turns holding the lead. The gold medal was still up for grabs when they reached their last exercises in the rotation. At that point, Scherbo was ahead of the other two by a narrow margin, but his lead looked far from secure.
Below: The Soviet Union may have been fractured, but its former gymnasts were able to celebrate together as the best all-around team. It included Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians, who would compete on separate teams at the 1996 Games.

Misiutin s last turn came on the horizontal bar, which usually brought out the best in him (he was