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Olympic games
In ancient Greece, the home of the Olympic Games, the period between the two festivals of the most prepared athletes was called the Olympics. It lasted four years. When the games took place, the wars were interrupted. Peace reigned. The modern games were renewed in Athens in 1896. They were not at the end of the Olympics only when peace was broken in modern civilization.
Olympism suffered because of the First and Second World Wars. Today, in peacetime, the war of humanity with the corona virus has taken its toll.
For the first time in history, the competitors will not be reflected in the leap year, but in the so-called idle. Tokyo was supposed to host the XXXII Olympic Games 2020, but necessity postponed the celebration of a healthy body and a healthy spirit for this summer (July 23 – August 8).
One of the most famous photographs from the Olympic Games was taken on October 16, 1968, at the Olympic Stadium in Ciudad, Mexico, the Mexican capital. The author is John Dominis, a legendary American photojournalist. It is remembered as the Greeting of the Black Power. The heroes of his work are American black sprinters on the podium for the awarding of medals immediately after the finals in the 200 m. The highest step is dominated by Tommy Smith, who triumphed with a world record of 19.83 seconds. (Since the World Cup in Berlin in 2009, the best achievement is held by Jamaican Jusein Bolt with 19.19). Behind him is John Carlos, bronze medalist with 20.10. They are both with raised fists in black gloves and with bowed heads during the intonation of the US anthem.
Right and left glove
They protested the rise of racism in their country, using the eyes of the world to point out the oppression of the black population in America, paying tribute to the luminary of the struggle for equality, Martin Luther King, killed in Memphis on April 4, 1968. They came to the ceremony in black socks. which symbolized the poverty of African Americans. Smith wore a black scarf around his neck, which represented the pride of blacks. Carlos supported the working class in blue overalls with the unbuttoned upper part of his tracksuit. He wore a pearl necklace. He intended it for those killed in the Middle Passage, which was the geographical determinant for the transatlantic trade in black slaves in the triangle of West Africa, Europe, North and South America.
They were also supported by the holder of the silver medal, the Australian Peter Norman, who is with 20.06 seconds. set a national record. He was an ardent critic of White Australian politics. He found out about the plan of the two rivals just before leaving the stadium. Since Carlos forgot his gloves in the Olympic Village, it was Norman who suggested that he put on Smith’s left hand, so his left hand was raised.
All three wore the badges of the “Olympic Human Rights Project”. It was an American organization founded by dark-skinned sociologist Harry Edwards in October 1967. It fought against racial segregation and racism in sports in general, and was joined by Smith and Carlos. One of her goals was to return the title of world heavyweight champion to the famous boxer Mohamed Ali, which was taken away from him by the New York Boxing Commission on April 28, 1967 due to his opposition to the war in Vietnam and sending American soldiers to death.
The scene from the podium was the main news in the world.
– When I win, then I am an American, not a black American. If I do something bad, then I am black. We are black and we are proud of that. “Black America will understand what we did tonight,” Smith said after the award.
Nazis against Nazism
The stadium condemned them with whistles and insults. Some gestured with their thumbs down as if a matador in a bullfight was about to stab a bull. The Associated Press called their gesture Nazi. “Time” wrote a few days later: The Olympic motto is faster, stronger, better, and the scene in Mexico is better described as furious, nasty, uglier.
The IOC, finding that the principles according to which politics has no place in Olympic sports were grossly violated, ordered the American Olympic leadership to expel Smith and Carlos under the threat of expelling the entire US team. When the Americans objected, only the two of them were expelled, but their medals were not taken away.
The president of the IOC, at that time it was the American Avery Brandidj, who was the head of the National Olympic Committee at the Olympic Games in Hitler’s Berlin in 1936. At that time, he was condemned by the defenders of Smith and Carlos, he did not mind the Nazi salute, because he considered him nationally legitimate for the Germans. Brandidz was revered for being one of the most prominent proponents of Nazism in the United States even after World War II.
The black community considered the two notorious athletes heroes. They were undesirable for the establishment. They went through Golgotha with their families, because they were threatened with death!
Statue of St. Hose
San Jose State University in the city of the same name was indebted in 2005 to its former students Smith (he was 24 at the Olympics) and Carlos (23). A seven-meter-high statue called the Greeting of Victory was placed in the park, faithfully made according to the motif from the pedestal in Mexico.
The idea was given by student Eric Groz, who found inspiration in his professor’s lectures on the importance of Smith and Carlos for the development of civil rights, and is aware of the fact that the University did not owe them anything.
Overture by breaking the Olympic record
Olympic record at 200 m. held by the American Henry Carr, who took the gold in Tokyo in 1964 with 20.30 sec. Smith surpassed that in the first qualifying race, and then Norman beat him in the sixth with 20.23.
The next day, on the day of the finals, Carlos sewed them all in the first semifinal race with 20.12. Smith, we said, won gold with a world and Olympic record of 19.83 seconds.
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