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SPECIAL SECTION/CANADA'S TEAM | FEBRUARY 2, 1998 VOL. 151 NO. 4 |
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The Weird Games More and more novelty sports keep being added. What comes next, winter skeet shooting? By JAMES CHRISTIE
Of course, Coubertin never wanted to see women compete either. But on the brink of the 21st century, the Olympics are increasingly faced with a paradox. Based at least poetically on the theme of continuity with the distant past, the Games must come up with novel events on an ever increasing basis. How long can they stand the strain? The paradox is driven by money, something else Coubertin hoped would never sully the Games. The International Olympic Committee commands billion-dollar television-broadcast fees. To justify the sticker price, the I.O.C. these days pursues ever increasing audiences. The result is a forced evolution toward TV-friendly entertainment as much as tests of athletic skills. Look at what has come Coubertin's way lately. Recent additions to the Winter Games have included short-track speed skating (introduced in 1992), moguls ski races with rock-'n'-roll background music (1992) and freestyle aerial skiing (1994). The Olympics won't be mistaken for the Extreme Games--there's no bungee jumping, hang gliding or skydiving, at least yet--but there's a definite Gen X factor. Triathlon, board sailing and mountain biking all used to be on the X Games program. Now they're mainstream. So, at Nagano, is snowboarding. One enthusiast describes it as "better than skiing because if you fall, you don't have to go back and find your poles." Great. The official sport of kids who don't like to pick up after themselves. What next? Ski jumpers launching themselves over the biathlon course--winter skeet shooting? Ken Read, one-time Crazy Canuck downhill skier, thought he was joking when he responded a few years back to the news that curling had been brought into the Games. "Can bowling, darts and ballroom dancing be far behind?" Read asked. Good question. As of last summer, ballroom dancing--along with surfing--was provisionally recognized by the I.O.C. Like mountain climbing, roller skating, water-skiing, and, yes, bowling, it can be considered for future Games. Actually, history shows that the Games have embraced a number of oddball competitions. The 1900 Paris Summer Olympics featured live-pigeon shooting, a one-time appearance of the alleged sport. Imagine gold medals for club swinging (1904), stone throwing (1906), tug-of-war (1900 to 1920) and 16-man naval rowboat racing (1906). Then there was skeleton racing (1928 and 1948), a face-first luge event. Periodic eruptions of oddity notwithstanding, it used to be very difficult for a sport, even a weird one, to break into the lineup. Organizers of a summer competition had to show that the event was practiced on four continents and in at least 75 countries. A sport selected by the host country would be allowed into the Games on a demonstration basis. The Atlanta Games were the first with no demonstration sports. Beach volleyball and mountain-bike racing began in Atlanta without an apprenticeship. It has always been easier for winter sports to get invited to the party--participation in 25 countries and on three continents is the threshold. Curling, for example, is a well-established sport that test-marketed well as a demonstration event in 1988 and 1992. As Richard Pound, I.O.C. vice president and Canada's senior I.O.C. member, explained, however, "national Olympic committees had asked the I.O.C. to eliminate demonstration sports. They found they were unable to control the athletes due to their less than full status, although the committees were held responsible for athletes' actions." Because of this, snowboarding and women's hockey won immediate medal status for Nagano. Look for more instant traditionalism in the future. On tap for the Sydney Games in the year 2000 are women's water polo and weight lifting, trampoline and triathlon. The latter involves an open-water swim in the bay outside the Sydney Opera House. Officials hope the water's being too cold in the Australian springtime for tiger sharks to get a taste of the new sport. If not, it may be another one-appearance wonder. In the meantime, anyone for darts? James Christie is a sportswriter for the Globe and Mail.
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radition calls for the skies over the opening ceremony of the
Olympics to be filled with doves of peace. At Nagano, the skies
will also be crowded with high-flying snowboard riders and
upside-down freestyle-skiing aerialists. Somehow, it's hard to
believe Pierre de Coubertin had skiing's radical dudes and
hotdoggers in mind when he fathered the modern Games back in 1896.