Legends of the Games - from 1920 to 1980
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TUESDAY, AUGUST 2, 2016 SPORTS Legends of the Games - from 1920 to 1980 RIO DE JANEIRO: The 31st Summer waved to him in passing. But Owens was Olympics starts on August 5 in Rio de snubbed by his own president on his return Janeiro. Here is AFP Sport’s first set of leg- to the United States when Franklin D. ends of the Games. Roosevelt failed to greet him, a customary honour for returning champions. “When I PAAVO NURMI, THE ‘FLYING FINN’ came back to my native country, after all the One of the Olympics’ first superstars, stories about Hitler, I couldn’t ride in the Finland’s Nurmi stole the show at Antwerp front of the bus,” Owens said later. “I had to 1920, winning three gold medals in the go to the back door. I couldn’t live where I 10000m, individual and team cross country, wanted. I wasn’t invited to shake hands with and silver in the 5000m, in the space of just Hitler, but I wasn’t invited to the White House three days. But he outdid himself four years to shake hands with the president, either.” US summer of later in Paris, winning the 1500m and then Owens, a pack-a-day smoker for much of his the 5000m two hours later, before success- life, died of lung cancer in 1980. In testament racial tension fully defending his team and individual cross to his enduring popularity among the country titles and then taking gold in the German public, he has a street and a school surfaces on 3000m team race, becoming the first athlete named after him in Berlin. to win five gold medals at the same road to Rio Olympics. But there was controversy when FANNY BLANKERS-KOEN Finnish officials, fearing for his physical con- Female athlete of the century Blankers- LOS ANGELES/RIO DE JANEIRO: dition, refused to allow him to defend his Koen defied conventions about age, sex and America’s hot summer of racial tension, 10000m title. The angry Nurmi responded, motherhood, and blazed a pathway for violence and politics has spilled on to the after returning to Finland, by setting a new women’s sport when she swept to four track Fanny Blankers-Koen basketball court, the track and the Twitter world record in the event. At Amsterdam in gold medals at the 1948 Olympics as a 30- feeds of some of the country’s top sports 1928, Nurmi reclaimed his 10000m title and year-old mother of two. After making her competing and finally she was caught steal- en-title haul remained unmatched until stars. Now, as athletes head to the took silver in the 5000m and 3000m steeple- Games debut in 1936 — where she ing souvenir flags near the Imperial Palace- Michael Phelps swam to eight gold medals Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro from crimes which earned her a whopping 10- in Beijing in 2008. The mustachioed Spitz did Aug. 5-21, will they take the debate over approached Jesse Owens for an autograph, one of her most treasured possessions-the year ban, prompting her retirement. Fraser, the 100m and 200m double in both freestyle America’s racial divide onto the world’s from a working-class suburb of Sydney, and the butterfly, together with three relay biggest global sports stage with them? Dutch marvel’s Olympic career was put on hold by World War II. By the time the remains one of Australia’s most outspoken titles-and promptly retired. The abrasive What comes to mind is another sum- sports heroes, and recently courted contro- Spitz’s success wasn’t universally popular mer in which sports and race collided Olympics returned in London in 1948, and despite living for six years under German versy when she told misbehaving tennis among his rival swimmers: “It could have spectacularly: in 1968 at the Olympics in stars Nick Kyrgios and Bernard Tomic “to go happened to a nicer guy,” remarked one. Mexico City. occupation near Amsterdam, Blankers-Koen held six world records. Nevertheless, many back to where their parents came from”, Lucrative endorsements and business deals There, two American 200 metres track comments for which she later apologised. were to follow, until Spitz made a shortlived medallists, Tommie Smith and John held doubts about the young mother’s suit- comeback attempt aged 41, nearly two Carlos, raised their black-gloved fists and ability to compete-which were quickly LARISA LATYNINA, SOVIET decades after Munich, in time for the 1992 bowed their heads on the podium in sup- erased when she took gold in the 100m, MEDAL MACHINE port of Black Power, a protest for which 200m, 80m hurdles and 4x100m relay, top- Olympics. After Phelps broke his gold-medal Carlos says he has paid dearly. ping the podium in every event she entered. Ukrainian-born Latynina competed in the record in Beijing, Spitz was unstinting in his “As soon as we raised our hands, it’s “One newspaperman wrote that I was too 1958 world gymnastics while four months praise. “He is the single greatest Olympic ath- like somebody hit a switch. The mood in old to run, that I should stay at home and pregnant-and took home five gold medals. It lete of all time now... I always wondered the stadium went straight to venom,” take care of my children,” she told the New was the sort of determination that was to what my feelings would be. I feel a tremen- Carlos wrote in an op-ed on Vox in July. York Times in 1982. “When I got to London, I bring her 18 Olympic medals, a record which dous load off my back.” “Within days, Tommie and I were sus- stood for nearly half a century until it was pointed my finger at him and I said: ‘I show TEOFILO STEVENSON, THE CUBAN ALI pended from the US Olympic team and you.’” In 1999, Blankers-Koen was named broken in 2012 by American swimmer had to leave Mexico City early.” The vio- female athlete of the century by the IAAF, Michael Phelps. Latynina finished her Stevenson resisted the lure of profession- lence on America’s streets has made and she died five years later in 2004. Olympic career with nine gold medals, five al boxing-including a lucrative fight with many think back to the 1960s, the decade silver and four bronze, becoming gymnastics’ Muhammad Ali-to remain resolutely ama- defined by the fight for civil rights. EMIL ZATOPEK, UNIQUE DISTANCE TREBLE inaugural superstar. “She was our first leg- teur throughout his career, earning the In July alone, two black men were Zatopek spoke six languages and “never end,” Bela Karolyi, the coach of Romania’s devotion of his fellow Cubans. “What is a mil- killed by police in Louisiana and Nadia Comaneci, said of Latynina. “When lion dollars worth compared to the love of Minnesota, and there were two ambush- shut up”, according to one miffed rival, and sometimes it seemed that he never stopped she stepped out on the floor, all eyes were eight million Cubans?” he once said. es on police in Dallas and Baton Rouge, on her. She demanded attention and Stevenson was crowned Olympic heavy- Louisiana that left eight officers dead. running either. The Czech distance great, known for his ungainly running style, respect.” At her first Games in 1956, Latynina weight champion three times in 1972, 1976 Some athletes, like women in the won the vault and floor exercises en route to and 1980, one of only three fighters to win WNBA pro basketball league, have shown claimed an enormous victory in the 10000m a hard-fought all-round title, as well as gold three Olympic gold medals, and the first support for the Black Lives Matter move- at the 1948 Olympics, lapping all but two ment that coalesced nationally in 2014 competitors, despite racing for the first time in the team event. She defended her all- after Hungary’s Laszlo Papp 24 years earlier. after the police killing of an unarmed over the distance only two months earlier. A round title in 1960, and again took gold in In a 1988 Boxing Illustrated poll, the tower- teenager in Missouri. few days later in the 5000m, an out-of-sorts the floor exercises and team event. At Tokyo ing but graceful Stevenson, with a thunder- Others like basketball player Carmelo Zatopek dropped 100m behind Belgian in 1964, when she was 29, Latynina won her ing right hand-and a striking resemblance to Anthony, a member of the Olympic team, leader Gaston Reiff before stirringly fighting third straight floor and team titles. Despite Ali-was selected as the greatest Olympic have used their star power to bring back to miss gold by a whisker, in what her unprecedented medal haul, Latynina’s boxer of all time. In 1974, two years after his together communities and police to dis- would have been one of the great recoveries achievements were later overshadowed in first Olympic victory, promoters Bob Arum cuss racial tension and policing. of all time. Four years later at the Helsinki Olympic history by the exploits of Soviet and Don King both tried to lure the 22-year- “I am so humbled and honored that Olympics in 1952, Zatopek successfully gymnast Olga Korbut and Comaneci, but she old to fight the then fading Ali, a match that the women of the WNBA went to such an defended his 10000m crown, and then came to public attention again as Phelps many observers believe the Cuban would extent to uplift our message and the zeroed in on her record in London.