#FOWC Archives – THE PAGE TURNS

August 28, 2024August 28, 2024

The Other Olympiads

The Much Wenlock Olympian Games are the oldest continuing multi-sport competition. Photo from Wenlock Olympian Society.

As the Paris 2024 Paralympics begin this week, you may discover that they were created by German physician Ludwig Guttmann in 1948 in Stoke Mandeville, to help wheelchair-bound veterans … without ever really knowing that there was more to it than that. It’s wonderful that the Paralympics has risen to the international, multi-event, multi-sport, multi-ability competition that it has become. But its laudable origin story covers over the fact that the IOC picks and chooses which types of international events that it wants to embrace, while rejecting others. The IOC has absorbed, like the Borg, the Paralympics and the Special Olympics. They have ignored the Deaflympics and Math Olympiads. They have absolutely positively not allowed gays, women, or anyone outside their predefined circle, to be Olympic.

While I don’t yet know enough about the Paralympics to report on its competitions (and I will be on vacation as they occur–sorry), I can try to help set the stage. There were many Olympiads that happened before, during, and after Coubertin and his IOC buddies decided that they could own and trademark the word, the logo, and the activities that constituted an Olympiad.

July 31, 2024July 31, 2024

Turners, Sokols, and the Swedish Cure: Gymnastics History & the Games

Photos of group yoga, the US basic training course, and the Rockettes courtesy of Clipart, wikimedia, and Britannica.

What do yoga, obstacle courses, and the Rockettes have in common? They are each similar to exercise styles that were the precursor to modern competitive gymnastics.

You probably have all the details you need to know about the history of Simone Biles, the GOAT of women’s gymnastics. You’ve seen her parents, heard about what she did at age seven, know her family history, medical history, and her husband’s shoe size. You know how she got here. But how did gymnastics get here into the Olympics? It may surprise you to know that gymnastics emerged from multiple paths, all of which had cultural and philosophical movements attached to them.

July 26, 2024July 27, 2024

The Paradoxical International Parade of Nations

Greece comes first, even if the nation of Greece bears little resemblance to the vision of ancient Olympia. Photo from Newscaststudio.com.

This is ultimately a story about flag dipping–or the lack thereof–and how the American media lied about it, until it turned into yet another “Land of the Free” myth based on false information. But in order to get there, we have to dig into another subject first, the underlying paradox of the Games.