David Wallechinsky Gives His Answers to Readers’ Questions (Part I)

Last week we solicited your questions for Olympics expert and historian David Wallechinsky, author of “The Complete Book of the Olympics.”

He tackled about 30 of them. Here is the first set of answers; the rest will follow tomorrow.

Thanks to David for his thoughtful answers and to all of you for the good questions!

Q: How confident are you that the HGH test will actually catch or deter some athletes from cheating this summer in Beijing? –Clay

David Wallechinsky: The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is involved in an ongoing competition of its own against drug cheats, and it is hard to tell what they have up their sleeves for Beijing in general and for pre-Games testing in particular.

The topic of doping is sensitive in China. A Chinese publisher once translated my book, “The Complete Book of the Olympics,” into Chinese. The manuscript was ready to go to the printers when they asked if they could delete certain parts of my text. For one thing, from my chart of all the athletes who have ever failed a drug test at the Olympics, they wanted to delete the name of the only Chinese athlete to fail a test — 1992 volleyballer Wu Dan — while retaining the names of athletes from all other countries. My Chinese agent explained to me that although it may be true that Wu Dan tested positive, “certain aspects of the truth have not yet been shared with the Chinese people.” I refused to allow the deletion, and publication was canceled.

Q: I would like to know your opinion on Chicago’s chances of landing the 2016 Games. –Steven

DW: Chicago is up against Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo and Madrid. The IOC would like to have the Games in Rio simply because the Olympics have never been held in South America, but there are concerns that Brazil is not prepared to stage an event as complex as the Summer Olympics.

As for Tokyo, Japan did a great job of hosting the 1964 Summer Olympics, the 1972 Winter Olympics and the 1998 Winter Olympics. However, with the 2008 Summer Olympics being staged in Beijing, the IOC may be hesitant to give the Olympics to Asia again so soon.

Madrid has a fine sporting tradition and is well equipped to hold the Olympics. IOC members might not want to give the Olympics to Spain only 24 years after the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, but those Games were a success.

Chicago could run into the same problem as Madrid because in the last 28 years, the United States has hosted the Summer Games twice (Los Angeles 1984 and Atlanta 1996) and the Winter Games twice (Lake Placid 1980 and Salt Lake City 2002). But in my opinion, the IOC owes Chicago. More than a hundred years ago, the IOC awarded the 1904 Olympics to Chicago. However, St. Louis had scheduled a world’s fair for 1904 — the Louisiana Purchase Exhibition — and the organizers of the fair threatened to stage a competing international sports tournament. President Theodore Roosevelt sided with St. Louis, and the IOC voted to move the Games. This turned out to be a terrible mistake, as the fair organizers in St. Louis, having eliminated the competition to their event, relegated the Olympics to a mere appendage to their other planned activities. All this may have happened a long time ago, but as a historian, I do believe that the IOC owes Chicago the chance to stage the Olympics.

Q: The additions of freestyle skiing and snowboarding to the Winter Games and BMX to the Summer Games seem to be desperate attempts to capture more American TV viewers. Do you think this is yet another sign that the IOC has sold its soul to the American TV dollar? –Montgomery

DW: Freestyle skiing, snowboarding and BMX were added to the Olympic program not so much to appeal to American TV viewers, as to attract the youth audience. Having said that, it is true that the sports and events added to the Winter Olympics since 1992 have been heavily skewed toward North America. Here is a chart from the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics that tells how many total medals each of the leading winter powers won and how many of them came in the new events:

Nation	Medals	Medals in new events
USA	…25	14
Canada	…24	12
Germany	…29	1
Austria	…23	1
Russia	…22	1
Norway	…19	2

Q: Do you think China will win more gold medals and overall medals than any other country? –Carl

DW: China will probably win more gold medals and overall medals than any other country. The Chinese Communist Party has gone to great lengths to maximize China’s chances. For example, they have intensified their efforts in sports with multiple events and in “soft” sports, like rowing, gymnastics and women’s weightlifting. Keep in mind that in China, unlike in the United States, the sports system is run by the government, which is capable of scouring a nation with quadruple the population of the U.S. and matching promising children and young people with the sports and events that match their body types.

Q: I’m often dismayed by the USA’s lack of success in the Olympics at weightlifting. Why is the U.S. unable to be competitive at this sport? What are the prospects for the U.S. in weightlifting? –A weight-lifter

DW: Once upon a time (1948-1960), the United States was a legitimate power in weightlifting. Since 1960, the U.S. has not won a single gold medal in men’s weightlifting. I don’t believe that Americans have become weaker. It’s just that nowadays the strongest Americans choose sports other than weightlifting. In countries like China, Russia, Bulgaria and Greece, a weightlifter can become a national hero and make a good deal of money. That is not the case in the U.S. It’s not surprising that unusually strong Americans choose to play football instead.

Q: Why was rugby eliminated from the Olympics? Also, when do you think it will come back (if it does)? –Louise

DW: Rugby was included in the Olympics in 1900, 1908, 1920 and 1924. It never attracted more than three countries at a time. In 1924, the Olympics were held in Paris. When the U.S. team, in front of 40,000 French fans, injured two French players, the spectators became unruly. The U.S. went on to win, 17-3, fighting broke out in the stands, and Gideon Nelson, an art student from De Kalb, Ill., was knocked unconscious after being hit in the face with a walking stick. At the awards ceremony, the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” was drowned out by jeering, and the U.S. team had to be escorted from the field under police protection. Rugby has been excluded from the Olympics ever since.

The current position of the IOC is that there will be no sports added to the Olympics unless other sports are dropped. The IOC has in fact dropped baseball and softball from the Olympic program after the Beijing Games. In October 2009, the IOC will consider adding two more sports to the 2016 Olympics. Because of the increased interest in rugby and the success of the Rugby World Cup, there is some speculation that rugby might be readmitted. Other sports being considered include karate, golf, squash and roller sports. Baseball and softball will also appeal for readmission.

Q: Could you describe the history and evolution of the decathlon, heptathlon and pentathlon? Any good bibliography on these topics? — Dennis

DW: The decathlon was added to the Olympic program in 1912, and the 10 events have remained the same ever since. There was a 10-event “All-Around Championship” at the 1904 Olympics that included an 800-yard walk and a 56-pound throw. In 1912 the decathlon was spread over three days. This was shortened to two days in 1920 and has stayed that way ever since.

In 1964 a five-event pentathlon for women was inaugurated. It included the 80-meter hurdles, shot put, high jump, long jump and 200-meter dash. In 1980, the hurdles event was lengthened to 100 meters and the 200-meter run to 800 meters. In 1984, the IOC approved the expansion of the pentathlon to a heptathlon by adding the javelin throw and reinstating the 200 meters, while retaining the 800 meters.

For further reading, see two books about the decathlon by Frank Zarnowski: “The Decathlon: A Colorful History of Track and Field’s Most Challenging Event” and “All-Around Men: Heroes of a Forgotten Sport.”

Q: Regarding cycling in Beijing. Other than wanting to add BMX and the IOC’s ceiling on total events, were there any other reasons the individual time trial on the track was eliminated? –Bruce

DW: The 1000-meter individual time trial is a classic cycling event that has been included in every Olympics since 1928. That’s 18 in a row. In today’s television-driven world, with a cap on total events, many sports are being forced to give up events that are not telegenic, like the 1000-meter individual time trial, and replace them with events that are more exciting to watch, like BMX.

Q:Sometimes I see the medals for soccer from the St. Louis Olympics included and sometimes they are not. Ought we to say that Canada has a gold medal and the U.S. a silver and a bronze in this event? –Murf

DW: The 1904 soccer tournament is considered an official Olympic event. There were three teams entered. The Galt Football Club of Ontario, Canada, won both their matches and finished first. Two St. Louis school teams, from the Christian Brothers College and the St. Rose Parish School, finished second and third.

Q: I’ve been researching the Olympic Truce and the first instance I have found of its reappearance in the 20th century was during the 1952 Games and then again in 1956. Were there earlier 20th-century invocations of the Truce by an Olympic host nation as either a symbolic call for peace or actual political intervention? Clearly there were subsequent uses of it, but when did it make its reappearance? — Ellen

DW: It is not true that a truce was honored during the ancient Olympics. It is true that warring parties would pause to allow participants and spectators to travel to the Olympics and, later, to return home. The IOC and the United Nations formally endorsed a more complete form of truce in 1992 and 1993 respectively.

Q: Was Budapest originally scheduled to host the 1920 Games that were eventually awarded to Antwerp after World War I? — Jeremy

DW: Although the possibility of Budapest hosting the 1920 Olympics was discussed, the city never made a formal bid.

Q: Is NBC going to try to keep YouTube (or other video sites) from posting Olympics coverage? If so, can they do anything about clips from non-American media? –Justin

DW: NBC itself has promised to provide thousands of hours of live streaming and on-demand coverage of Olympic events, allowing viewers to follow, for the first time, full coverage of their favorite sports or events. This is likely to drastically lessen the demand for unofficial YouTube clips.

Q: With the increasing technological advances in equipment, do you believe the Games still test who is the superior athlete overall, or are they becoming more a measure of the equipment? If so, how do you think this issue can be successfully addressed in the future? –Farah

DW: Technological advances have certainly given an advantage to wealthier nations, even in the equipment used for training. However there are some sports, like running, boxing and wrestling, where the skills required are universal and the winners can come from almost anywhere.

Q: It seems that politics and the Olympics have been intertwined for as long as I can remember. Was the original Olympiad grounded in this type of social/political context or was it simply a competition of athletic prowess? And in your opinion, is boycotting the Games fair to the athletes who are simply trying to win an athletic competition, but who also represent a nation that has greater interests in the world than just sports? –Ryan

DW: The ancient Olympics were not pure competitions testing athletic prowess. Athletes were fully supported in their training and amply rewarded back home if they won. There were even boycotts in the ancient Games.

I am opposed to Olympic boycotts, even when the cause they support is legitimate. They needlessly punish athletes and are not effective anyway. In the current context, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is guilty of numerous human rights abuses that are worthy of protest, from forced abortions to brutal suppression of minority groups and supporters of democracy. However, the only kind of pressure to which the CCP will ever respond is economic pressure, not pressure relating to sporting events.

Part 2 of David’s answers to your questions is here.