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News22 Aug 2004


Dunaway's Athenian Column - Day Three

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The finish of the men's 100m final - Gatlin, Obikwelu, Greene (© Getty Images)

Athens, GreeceJim Dunaway who has attended every Olympic Games since Munich in 1972 brings his own weathered eye on what’s been happening in and around the Athletics events at the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad.

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It is kind of amazing how English has become the real language of the Olympic Games.

As I look over the track (and field) in the Olympic Stadium, there is literally more English than Greek visible. The signs and banners all around the track (and in fact throughout the city) read ‘Athens 2004’ in English, not only not in the Greek alphabet, but not even in the Roman alphabet, as, ‘Athinai’, which one often sees on road signs around the city.

The event boards, too, read, ‘High Jump,’ ‘Triple Jump,' and  ‘Hammer Throw’ in plain old English. Only on the giant score boards at either end of the arena do you see any Greek, and even there English gets equal time. And at the refreshment stands you can ask for such familiar names as ‘hot dog,’ ‘sandwich’ and of course ‘Coca-Cola.’

Not so long ago there were two official languages ‘English and French’ plus the local lingo, at the Olympics.

Now, though, it looks as if the 'lingua franca' of the Games is English.
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After the major fuss created by the USA men’s 4x100 celebration four years ago, you might have thought that the American sprinters would have toned down the showboating, or at least saved it until they were off the track.

Yet in the first semifinal of the men’s 100 metres here tonight, Shawn Crawford opened up a huge lead, then at about 75 metres looked around, turning almost sideways, and slowed to let teammate and training partner Justin Gatlin catch up with him.

According to Gatlin, Crawford merely said, ‘Lets do it. Let’s go one-two!’ referring to the final.  Innocent enough, but from the stands it sure looked like showboating. A British reporter sitting next to me said, ‘I thought we got rid of that after Sydney. What kind of respect is that for the other athletes?’

I guess the rest of us just have to understand that, just as boys will be boys, sprinters will be sprinters, and that their ebullience boils over more easily than folks who can’t run so fast.

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The best side show in the stadium is watching the hurdles crew. When it’s time for a hurdles race, out come four golf carts each towing its own little trailer with racks for holding the hurdles.

They are attended by 25 of what we usually call ‘hurdle engineers’ in the States, who enter marching in single file. There’s a leader, plus three groups of eight, who operate with military precision. As one of the golf carts stops, the ‘engineers’ take off the hurdles, and then march with them to the correct place on the track. At a signal, they put the hurdles down precisely where they’re supposed to be. Meanwhile, the golf carts have moved along, and the next crew of eight unloads and places the next row of hurdles.

And so on. And after the hurdles races are over, the operation is done in reverse, with if anything more perfect coordination. Then the 25 attendants march out, their chief in the lead. And the four carts, newly reloaded with their hurdles, chug off the track, looking exactly like one of those little trains that carry tourists around the Plaka here every night and Disneyland every day.

Jim

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