Olympic Games
HERE is a legend that the English don’t like Olympic games, but don’t like not to like them. There may even be people who believe it-who find it sp much easier swallowing camels than swallowing gnats that they would sooner have any explanation of Wembley’s crowds than attribute them to interest in the games now in progress there. What these mugwumps really mean is that England does not like what has occasionally happened at Olympic games and the use that has occasionally been made of them. But Hitler is dead, and one reason why the games are being held in Britain is that sportsmen afe as anxious as politicians to turn their backs on him forever.. There is as much mercenariness in Britain as anywhere else; as much vanity; as much interest by individuals in rewards. But of the 2% millions who have bought tickets for Wembley, two millions would leave their seats and go home again if the games degenerated, as they did in Germany, into a political scramble for glory. This does not mean that there will be no heart-burnings, no questioning of the judges, no jealousies, manoeuvrings, or sly tricks. It is impossible to assemble five thousand men and women from 50 or 60, countries, with all their backers and well-wishers, and pit them against one another for sixteen days without some friction and corruption. They are men and women after all and not angels and archangels... But they are also, without exception, amateurs. They are there to set an example and exalt an ideal; to be swift and strong even if they can’t all be the swiftest and the strongest; to fight worthily whether they win or lose; and to learn to look generously across international boundaries. That is the goal; and if it is easy to be critical of the slightly ridiculous solemnity of some of the ceremonial, to wonder what some of the competitors made of Kiplings hymn, for example, and others of the Hallelujah Chorus, it has never been difficult to simulate the crackling of thorns under a pot.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 476, 6 August 1948, Page 5
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348Olympic Games New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 476, 6 August 1948, Page 5
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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