Guest Posts on County 10 are provided by contributors and the opinions, thoughts, and comments within are their own and may not necessarily reflect those of County 10.
Maybe it’s a coincidence, and maybe it’s just how jingoistic Americans view the world, but every four years the best and the worst of us is brought forth. First, the best, the US Olympic team in late summer, and then the worst, the culmination of the sordid actions that substituted what was the once the greatest aspect of American life, national elections.
To say that the two are intertwined is an obvious statement. Politics now pervades every aspect of our lives.
A recent post on social media of a photograph of a milkweed in the early morning brought dozens of derogatory comments that quickly descended into threats from keyboard warriors across the globe. It was only a picture of a plant.
It’s the world we live in.
Much of this is driven by the insatiable appetite for news, any news, generated by the 24/7 news networks and those same keyboard warriors who have to force their opinions on everyone else.
The truth is that politics are nothing new in athletics.
The saga of Jim Thorpe competing as a Native American at a time when he wasn’t even allowed to be a citizen. Jesse Owens winning four gold medals while not being allowed to eat with the white members of the 1936 Olympic team and the well-known, but largely fictionalized (by Hollywood) tale of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in big league baseball. All of these are examples of politics stepping into athletics.
In 1915, my grandfather Eugene Gasser was a private in the Swiss Army. He won the Swiss equestrian jumping competition, clearing 7-4 on his horse. That height qualified him for the 1916 Olympic games in Berlin, only there weren’t any games that year. World War I was ravishing Europe and the major powers cancelled the competition.
By 1920, he was out of the Swiss Army and preparing to immigrate to Wyoming.
The games returned to a very different Berlin 20 years later.
In a showcase of the rising power of Hitler’s Third Reich, Olympic Stadium in Berlin was an awe-inspiring work of art. It wasn’t just Nazi architecture on display, the entire sordid concept of racial superiority was central to the games as well.
Owens wasn’t supposed to compete, the Nazis openly considered Blacks inferior, barely human, and made those opinions openly.
While they despised American Black athletes, they held special revulsion for the Jewish athletes competing for the USA.
Owens blew the theory apart, winning four gold medals, including a world record leap in the long jump that held for 32 years, until another politically charged Olympics in Mexico City in 1968.
Winning the 100 and 200-meter dash, the long jump, and anchoring America’s gold medal 4×100 meter relay are all well remembered. What isn’t reported very often is the unique friendship that developed between Owens and German long jumper Lutz Long.
Legend has it that after Owens fouled on his first two preliminary attempts that Long approached him and suggested he take off from behind the board to avoid fouling on his third attempt and missing the finals.
Legendary sportswriter Grantland Rice focused on Owens throughout the games, knowing that Jesse’s performance would be the story of the games. He never witnessed Long speaking to Owens before his third jump. Almost three decades later, Owens admitted it never happened but said it still made a good story.
What did happen was the friendship that developed between Long and Owens. Long was the European champion and led Owens until his final jump. Owens won gold, Long silver, and in a twist, the Japanese champion, Naoto Tajima won the bronze.
A scant five years later, the United States, Japan, and Germany were embroiled in World War II.
Long risked more than being shunned by the German Olympic Committee when he and Owens began eating together and spending free time between events in each other’s company.
Hitler was furious that Long, a member of the “Master Race” had been defeated by a sub-human.
What began at the Olympics between Long and Owens lasted seven years. The two men wrote to each other many times.
Owens joined the US Army, where he continued to be treated as a second-class citizen, even though he was an officer.
Long was drafted into the German Army. He was killed by American forces during the invasion of Sicily on July 14, 1943. He was just 30 years old.
Before his death, in one of his final letters to Owens, Long asked Jesse to contact his son Kai-Heinrich after the war and tell him about his father and “what times were like when we not separated by war.
“I am saying, tell him how things can be between men on this earth,” Long wrote.
Owens returned to Germany many years later, found Kai-Heinrich, and told him stories of his father.
The circle was complete. Owens died in 1980 at age 67.
There have been other political events at the Olympics. The Black Power salute of Tommie Smith and John Carlos as they received their gold and bronze medals for the 200-meter dash respectively in Mexico City in October of 1968 stands out to Americans. The two men wore black gloves, and just one shoe to signify the inequality that Black Americans faced back home. They were threatened with having their medals removed by the International Olympic Committee, but that didn’t happen.
In 1972, Arab terrorists killed 13 Israeli athletes in Munich, the worst event to ever occur in the modern games.
In 1980 America boycotted the Moscow games over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Soviets returned the favor, boycotting the Los Angeles games four years later. Without the USA and the USSR going head to head, both games were dismal in terms of competition.
Thankfully we don’t have World Wars or a Cold War to contend with this year. The politics of the upcoming games in Paris have to deal with a bit of “Woke” sensationalism, but that’s about it.
Most of the world now considers the USA insane in many areas, mostly political, and rightly so.
Nikki Hiltz won the 1500-meter qualifier and is the USA’s top middle-distance runner. Let’s hope she takes the gold later this summer. Hiltz is the darling of the extreme left, carrying all the trademarks they love, transgender, nonbinary, a virtual alphabet soup of “Wokeness”
I don’t care. She has two X chromosomes, so she is a woman. I don’t care what labels she carries, or her fans tie to her. She’s fast, female, and an American, go for the gold.
The greatest American diver of all time, Greg Louganis, was openly gay. No one cared. His private life was his own. But that was before the pariah of social media. His lifestyle would be a focal point of division today.
Let the games begin, devoid of politics.
Go team USA.