Dear Foxy,

I was a seven year old boy in Lake Placid where they held the 1932 Olympics. My Uncle Harry was in charge of the decorations in the ice for the figure skaters. He ordered aquamarine coloring which was a beautiful translucent green. Instead the suppliers sent him ultramarine which was a muddy green. He had to use the ultramarine since he ran out of time. I met a lot of the athletes as Uncle Harry introduced me to them. There was no Olympic Village. The athletes were not isolated but had to find a place to stay in town and mixed with the people. There were no team sports. The athletes did not use the Olympics as a stepping stone to a career in professional sports. The Stevens brothers who lived in Lake Placid won a bobsled competition and were back in work in their garage next day. There was more concern with the achievements of the individual athletes than the number of medals their country won. As far as I am concerned that was the last worthwhile Olympics.

The next Olympics were in 1936 Nazi Germany. It was a showcase for Nazi glitz and a venue for international rivalry. Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, invented the Olympic torch. Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller, two Jewish athletes were on the US Olympics team but did not compete, possibly, to avoid embarrassing Hitler.

Marty Glickman - Wikipedia

The Olympics became and still are a cesspool of national rivalry, commercialism and inflated salaries of executives on the various Olympic committees

Dear David F.,

Thank You for sharing your information with me

My experiences of the Olympics is different to
yours.

What I remember about the Olympics were the great
sporting moments - like the Oarsome Foursome,
Kathy Freeman, Ian Thorpe, to name just a few.
And of course the spectacle of the opening ceremonies.
Which never disappointed.

I remember my parents taking the
games very seriously. And I felt and shared
their excitement watching them.

I don't know much about all the politics
you mentioned or the corruption, or the
various vested interests, and so on.

I shall be watching the Tokyo opening ceremony
tonight - and I am sure that as always I will
be cheering for Australia. I sympathize with your
point of view however - I can only go by my own
life experience - limited as it may be.

The Olympic Games should be held in the same place each time, I suggest Greece.

Well Greece has all those Olympic venues falling apart, unused since their Olympics, so after a few hundred million they could be ready to do it again, if they are stupid enough.

The commonwealth games were a disaster on the gold coast, but pollies do like making grand announcements, so I suppose someone will have to waste a fortune every leap year for decades to come. Should be good for hiding the payola for a few years.

The Olympics can be improved. I agree with Is Mise. Rather than have different areas of the world compete to host the Olympics and place a burden on their citizens to support the frivolity let the games stay in Greece. Promote amateurism in the Olympic committees. Rather than Olympic executives getting fat on large salaries ask executives who have proven their worth to volunteer to be on Olympic committees. Eliminate Olympic villages. Have athletes stay with local families promoting friendships with the Greek people. Award medals on an individual basis. A great runner is a great runner regardless of his or her country. Have teams formed just for the Olympics with citizens of different countries playing on the same team. Learn from professional sports where players from different countries play on the same team. Possibly the most outstanding baseball player in the US at this time is Japanese Shohei Ohtani who an excellent pitcher and hitter. Teams can represent regions rather than countries. Eliminate Institutes of Sport which encourage a few elite athletes to perform while many others sink into the role of couch potato. Replace the institutes by organizations which encourage more Australians to participate in sports and create a healthier Australia.

Compete in other areas beside sports. Australia can try to lower infant mortality rates, species extinction rates, inequality between rich and poor and other measures of national well being. Recognise other measures of worth beside athletics. Scientists, teachers and many other fields make greater contributions to our well being than athletes.

david f,
Ditto !