Olympian Ideals

Original Olympic stadium entrance. Might F1 be a good fit?
(Olympic Museum Lausanne photo)

The success of London 2012 has spawned a flurry of interest in
ways for F1 to become associated with the Olympic Games. Bernie
Ecclestone has said gold, silver and bronze medals should be
awarded on F1 podiums. There is talk about a F1 Grand Prix being
held in London's Olympic Park. In Greece, the country where the
Olympics originated, there is a movement to hold a F1 race. There
are even suggestions that F1 should be included as sport in
future editions of the Games. Inevitably, commercial opportunities
are at the root of the proposed connections but the so-called pinnacle
of motorsport and the global sporting extravaganza may not be such
unlikely bedfellows.

Those critics who maintain that F1 is not really a sport but a
business no longer have a leg to stand on. Aside from the fact
that top F1 drivers are athletes of the highest order (Jenson
Button and Mark Webber compete successfully in serious athletic
competition), their Olympian counterparts are full-time
professional medal hunters, funded by their nations and by
sponsors seeking the gold and glory associated with the
Olympics. Billions of dollars are spent hosting the Olympic Games
by countries hoping to capitalise on the money-spinning aspects of
the global athletic extravganza.  

Neither pursuit is perfectly 'pure' in that they have been used
for perverted political purposes, shamed by cheating, besmirched
by scandal. Once rooted in amateurism they are now paragons of
professionalism. The 'money means medals' fact of life in modern
Olympic competition is the equivalent of the cost of success in
F1, which mostly depends on how much you spend.

Though F1 may no longer claim to be the world's most expensive
sport it shares with the Games the internationality symbolised by
the Olympic Logo: five interlaced rings representing the five
continents. The FIA would surely approve of The Olympic Oath,
which reads: 'In the name of all competitors, I promise that we
shall take part in these Olympic Games, respecting and abiding by
the rules which govern them, in the true spirit of sportsmanship,
for the glory of our sport and the honour of our teams.'

The Olympic Games Motto 'Swifter, Higher, Stronger' readily
applies to F1 and its participants. "To stand still in F1 is to
go backwards", according to McLaren's Ron Dennis, who also
famously insisted "We exist to win." Mercedes constantly strives
to live up to its slogan 'The Best Or Nothing'. The stimulating
buzzline 'Red Bull Gives You Wings' might have to be toned down
for Olympic consumption, though Enzo Ferrari's personal motto "If
you dream you can do it" would serve to inspire ambitious
athletes. Whenever F1 teams lose they can take solace from The
Olympic Games Creed which states that 'The most important thing
is not to win but to take part'.

Many strident purists view F1 as the ultimate politically incorrect
activity: dangerous and anti-social in the extreme, a noisy,
polluting threat to the environment, a frivolous squandering of
the earth's dwindling resources, and a useless, extravagently
expensive waste of money completely unworthy of the support of
enlightened, concerned and morally responsible citizens. But the
sport snobs who think this way should be made aware that most
modern athletic contests are merely sanitised versions of the
mayhem committed in the name of sport in days of yore.

The rise and fall of the original Olympic Games...
The original Olympic Games, first held in ancient Greece in
776BC, were contested by amateur 'athletes' - a word that comes
from a Greek phrase meaning 'prize seekers.' The philosophy of
the Games was based on the Greek ideal: combining physical
prowess with intellectual development and aesthetic and moral
values as a means of perfecting individuals and nations. The
Olympics flourished for nearly 12 centuries before falling into decline
along with the high moral values of Greek civilization. The
spirit of amateurism and fair play faded as the athletes, lured
by cash prizes offered by wealthy aristocrats, became
professionals and there were cheating and bribery scandals. After
the Romans conquered Greece, in 146BC, the athletic contests
(running, jumping, wrestling and throwing the discuss and
javelin) deteriorated into bloodthirsty events where slaves were
forced to fight to the death. With the coming of Christianity the
Olympics came to be considered a sinful pagan rite and in 394AD
the Roman Emporer Theodosius abolished them.

Beastly fury and extreme violence...
Thereafter sporting contests degenerated into ever more
uncivilised encounters. Games in the Middle Ages were merely
modified variations on the theme of war, wherein whole villages
of men, women and children disported themselves in violent
pastimes like foteball, hurling, knappan, cat and dog, tip-cat,
trapball, stoolball and club-ball. An historian, writing in 1583,
described the sporting life thusly: 'It may rather be called a
kind of fight than play or recreation; a bloody and murderous
practice than a fellowly sport; and oftimes ensue fights,
brawling, contention, quarrel-picking, murder, homicide and great
effusion of blood'.

Aggressive forms of leapfrog, which featured head-bashing, groin-
pummelling and shin-kicking, were major attractions at village
festivals. In England the annual Hungerford Revels were a kind of
lunatic olympics. Typical supporting contests included village
idiots gurning through horse collars and old women drinking hot
tea, with the fastest winning a prize of snuff. The main event at
Hungerford starred two of the toughest men from miles around, who
stood toe to toe clubbing each other over the head with stout oak
staffs. The winner was the one who first made the blood flow from
his opponent's head to a length of one inch.

Gradually the artistocracy and landed gentry took control of
these unruly folk games, modified them, cleaned them up and
devised more rules intended to give them a modicum of
respectability. Yet sporting contests continued to raise an
excess of manly heat that boiled over. As participants brawled
and spectators rioted various attempts to discourage offenders
took the form of fines, imprisonment and threats from puritanical
preachers to bring down the wrath of God on those whose
unsporting behaviour resulted in 'nothing but beastly fury and
extreme violence'.

A short man with high ideals goes for gold...
Despite the troubled past of the original Olympics the concept of
reviving them to serve as a civilising force was originated in
1896 by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, an idealistic Frenchman who
believed a modern international sports event would end wars and
bring nations together in harmony. The Baron's definition of
Olympism comprised four basic principles: to adhere to an ideal
of higher life, to strive for perfection; to represent an elite
whose origins are egalitarian and at the same time chivalrous; to
create a truce - a festival of the springtime of mankind; to
glorify beauty by the participation of the arts and philosophy of
the Games. He admitted later that "Everyone thought I was mad",
but his powers of persuasion led to the formation of the
International Olympic Committee in which he served as president
from 1896 until 1925. Every four years the Baron's legacy
goes from strength to strength.

Baron Pierre de Coubertin (pictured below) was a one-man show.
The founding father of the Modern Olympics personally designed
the Olympic Games Logo and wrote the Oath, Motto and Creed.
The good Baron with the big ideas was a tiny man - just 5 feet 3 inches
- whose stature is reminiscent of the founding father of modern F1.

The Games founder was of familiar stature: a small man with big ideas.
(Olympic Museum Lausanne photo)