I was a kid of about 7 when the first post-war Olympic Games were held in 1948 in London and I fondly remember that at school we got the whole story about the creation of the modern Games and its initiator, Pierre de Coubertin, who sought to promote international understanding through sporting competition. Hearing his story over and over we held de Coubertin in the highest regard and the motto of the games Citius – Altius – Fortius meaning Faster – Higher – Stronger became almost a mantra to us kids. We knew that the games were the pinnacle of achievement and represented all that was good in sport… and life! And de Coubertin exemplified it!
And my beliefs in all of this were reinforced when I heard all those same stories when the Olympic Games came to Melbourne in 1956.
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That’s why it was such a shock to me when I discovered from reading Dangerous games: Australia at the 1936 Nazi Olympics that de Coubertin was not all he was cracked up to be and had feet of clay. The author of the book, Larry Writer, writes this about my fallen hero…
“Sadly, the founder of the modern Olympics would turn out to have feet of clay. Shortly before the Berlin games, Coubertin was so troubled by Hitler’s usurping of the Olympics that he refused to give the festival devil his blessing. Refused, that is, until he was slipped 10,000 reichsmarks from Nazi coffers and promised that he would be nominated for the Nobel Prize. He was duly nominated in 1936 but missed out, and died the following year.”
What a shock! For all those years I’d admired that man and then I find out he could be bought!
It’s a reminder to me, at least, that I must strive to “walk my talk”, to practise what I preach, to do what I say. I just don’t want to have those feet of clay!
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