The Greeks have a word for this.
Signomi.
It means, “Excuse me” or, “Sorry” or, “I apologize.”
That makes it the perfect all-purpose word for this situation after what happened in Greece.
Writing in these pages back in February, I called the men’s U.S. Olympic marathon trials “an apparently futile exercise” and said it made no difference whether one or three men qualified to run in Athens because the only one with a chance to win a medal, Khalid Khannouchi, had withdrawn with an injury.
Two months later, in a preview of the women’s marathon trials, I referred to Deena Kastor as Deena Kantor and said she was a lock to win that race.
That means I got it entirely wrong about U.S. marathoners.
Signomi.
Meb Keflezighi ignored the past futility of U.S. men, which had lasted 28 years, winning an Olympic silver medal with a performance that combined skill and tactical intelligence.
Deena Kastor did not win the trials, which led me to discount her Olympic chances. But, on a brutally hot Athens evening, she won a bronze medal by running within her means on that day, just as she had wisely done in finishing second at the trials, good enough to make the team. At the Olympics, many ahead of her withered, and Kastor soldiered on, moving up slowly from 11th with nine miles to go until, much to even her surprise, it was her name in third.
Do the medals won by these special K’s mean U.S. marathoners once again will be consistently competitive on the world scene, the way they were 20 years ago? That is unlikely, given the competition from Africa and Asia that has emerged since, but it makes no difference if their performances are the exception to a foreign rule.
What counts is that they were exceptional.
So were the Summer Olympic Games that ended Sunday, even if that judgment is necessarily limited to the perspective one person can have on an event where 10,500 athletes compete for 300 medals all over a city and country.
It is comforting to know my assessment was universally shared. Even had it not been, a narrowed perspective does not mean a narrow mind, like that of some columnists who decry the Olympics without considering how important they are, ample flaws and all, to the rest of the world.
Sure, there are too many judging controversies that affect Olympic results. But didn’t an umpire miss a call that likely decided the 1985 World Series? And didn’t officials incorrectly give the New England Patriots a chance to win a 2001 playoff game–a chance that let the Patriots go on to win the Super Bowl?
And those are only a few of the officiating mistakes that have changed the results of important professional and college sports events in the United States. How easy it is for some to forget that when they take unwarranted potshots at the Olympics.
Yes, the Olympic controversies often seem more invidious because politics and nationalism are involved, with judges from one country often unjustly favoring their own athletes.
The boxing scandal at the 1988 Summer Games and the figure skating mess at the 2002 Winter Games forced the International Olympic Committee to involve itself in rectifying these wrongs, rather than hiding behind the convenient rationale that each international sports federation is responsible for its own problems.
IOC President Jacques Rogge still kept too much of a distance–publicly, at least–from the gymnastics controversy in Athens, saying he would be talking to the gymnastics federation about ways to clean up the sport’s judging “in the coming months.”
That begged the immediate question, just as Rogge did with his disingenuous answer to questions over why the IOC had not intervened when a judo world champion from Iran suddenly found himself over the weight limit before a scheduled match against an Israeli.
Iran does not recognize Israel’s right to exist, and the Irani press quoted its athlete saying he had refused to wrestle the Israeli out of sympathy with the Palestinians. Rogge said he accepted evidence from an International Judo Federation investigation of the incident, during which the athlete claimed never to have made the reported statements.
“Declarations were made in Tehran by political people; we deal with sports people,” Rogge said. “We do not want to react to what politicians say.”
Please. In countries like Iran, the government has utter control over sports, and political agendas are only thinly veiled. The former Soviet bloc countries used sports success as an attempt to show that their communist political system was superior to that of their decadent capitalist foes.
China, another country where government and sports policy are intertwined, clearly is looking to make a similar statement at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
The Chinese admitted they were sacrificing medals that veteran athletes might have won in Athens because those veterans likely would not be able to remain at the top four more years.
They fielded a 407-member team, 227 of whom were 23 or younger. The results still were impressive for a country still building a sports program after not competing at the Summer Olympics from 1956 through 1980 for political reasons.
Despite turning to youth, China’s 32 gold medals were four more than it had won four years ago–and only three fewer than the Olympic-leading total of the United States. Seven of the Chinese champions were 20 or younger.
The Chinese also won a national-record 63 medals and had 68 athletes finish fourth through eighth.
“These Games saw the awakening of Asia,” Rogge said. “The traditionally strong nations that dominate the scene will have to work very hard to maintain that rank.”
Yuan Weimin, chairman of the Chinese Olympic Committee, thinks his country has a way to go. (Four years, maybe?)
“Our main aim is to become a strong country in sports, and I do not think we have achieved that as yet,” Yuan said.
Beg to differ, Mr. Yuan. Signomi.
