Let the Games Begin
the commune's Griswald Dreck might have more national pride if a nation would claim him. 

Monday, March 4, 2002
There’s nothing quite like a global controversy to really bring an Olympic Games to the next level. Every Games worth its wound full of salt has at least one memorable knee-whacking or equestrian sex scandal to its name. This year the brouhaha has been all about the pairs figure skating championship that saw the Russians Anton Sikharulidze and Elena Berezhnaya take the gold over Canadians David Pelletier and Jamie Sale, in spite of the fact that Sikharulidze tripped over his own untied shoelaces and his partner farted loudly when she was lifted over his head during the routine’s finale.

Scandal raged when allegations surfaced that French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne had been coerced to vote for the Russians after the Russian judge threatened to single-handedly conquer France. This prompted the French government to double their defense budget and send Le Gougne, a neurotic housewife who always votes for her janitor husband in political elections, the cryptic message "GIVE RUSSIANS SEX". Unfortunately for the Canadians, and possibly the Russian judge, "sex" is also French for "six" and Le Gougne misinterpreted the message by giving the Russian figure skaters a perfect score. The Chinese and Ukrainian judges also voted for the Russians, reportedly because Chinese and Ukrainian people think farts are funny.

Topical as such scandal may be, it’s hardly anything new. We need look no further than the Summer Games of two years ago to find the last Olympic falderal to quake the globe. In the 2000 Summer Games, scandal cropped up around the gymnastics meet when disgruntled workers botched the equipment set-up by making the uneven bars even, the rings uneven, and setting up a leather loveseat instead of the short vault. Look back even further and you’ll find that the Olympic trail of travesty is alarmingly well marked.

Rarely is archery the source of Olympic controversy, which made it all the more shocking in 1926 when Poland’s Frederyk Speitzel errantly picked up his bow backwards and shot bronze medallist Fonzlow Proust of Germany in the neck while he was browsing a catering tray set up behind the contestants. From that day forward, bow safety certification has been required of all Olympic contestants in the archery event.

In 1930, Pierre Altmount of France was stripped of his gold medal in the high jump after it was discovered that he’d planted explosive charges in the heels of his shoes. Few could forget the emotional scene when the Olympic Commissioner stood at the side of the hospital bed and slipped the gold from around Pierre’s comatose body.

In 1954 the equestrian show jumping event was won by what turned out to be two Bulgarians in a horse suit, who later apologized, said they’d learned their lesson, and asked if they could both be considered co-champions. Instead they were shot and made into a potted meat dessert by the IOC.

In perhaps the most infamous judging decision ever, the 1962 gold medal in the high-jump event was awarded to the German Hans Hansel, who suffered a brain aneurysm and died instantly while in mid-jump. Though his body flopped like a tuna under the bar and off the corner of the mat, judges argued that Hans’ soul shot straight up to heaven, setting a new record for the event.

Few can forget 1966, the year that Austrian Molmo Zoop won the synchronized swimming event all by himself, sparking a heated debate over whether one should be rewarded for being supremely in synch with oneself.

An eerie harbinger of things to come, in 1986 table-tennis favorite Tang Zui was taken out of competition when a deranged fan pulled Zui’s underwear up around his armpits and gave his ear a merciless flicking, an injury from which Zui never fully recovered. That year the gold went instead to Zui’s rival Chaney “Dweebasaurus” Clarkson, who rose to the occasion in spite of having his arm twisted and his lunch money taken from him only moments before the championship match.

The lesser controversies of Olympic history are too numerous to mention, among them: the infamous “Ding Dong Incident” at the 1956 men’s hockey final, the international vomiting incident in 2000 when Garth Brooks’ hit song Shameless was played before the men’s gymnastics preliminaries, Norwegian belching champion Leif Olafassen’s alleged use of bicarbonates in the 1936 Games, the polyester running pants fire during the 1974 Games, the controversial inclusion of professional shot putters in the 1960 Games, the alleged rope-greasing of the 1982 German men’s tug-of-war team, and the much-debated victory of the Canadian curling team in the 1972 Games, who defeated their only competitor in the Albanian men’s team, then took the Albanians' money in a "double or nothing" match that was clearly a set-up.

A little knowledge of history helps put things in perspective and goes to show that even though a corrupt and ridiculous judging system may be a total bummer for skating fans, at least they didn’t let any bears get loose on the ice like back in 1926. Talk about your low technical scores! It may not always be pretty, but the Olympics truly have come a long way, baby.