Politics and Cricket: Separate or not?

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Maranello

Interesting comments Oliver. My rejoinder:

1. The US and other Western nations did not participate in the Moscow Olympics of 1980 when the Soviets were massacring tens of thousands of Afghans - so sport does impact more than just cricket or rugby, and its not just an Anglo-centric thing.

2. The whole process of awarding Olympics is driven by politics (though money plays its parts), and politics meant that China did not stage the 2000 games, and politics dictates that China does host the 2008 Olympiad.

While I'd like to start: "don't get me started on the Olympics" I feel that I can actually reply - without raising my own hackles - If the World Cup of Association Football is the greatest show on earth, the Olympics are the second.

It is interesting that a whole different set of rules govern the Olympics and it's political problems, but right from 68 through to God knows when, the African problem (apartheid and the many trade blacklists) meant that most of that continent was very poorly represented at successive games.

Can anyone remember why the Soviet and associated Warsaw pact states (not including Romania) decided not to go to the '84 Los Angeles Olympics?

Even so short a time ago as 1980, many of the games were still "all" "amateur." It has, as ever, been the despoiling of the sport, when it was considered right to pay everybody vast sums for just turning up.

I wonder if Eddie the Eagle was paid appearance fees for being the worsed ever Olympic ski jumper.

"You can bet he's not thinking about the money, it's just the glory of finishing first" say so many commentators over the years. Yes, I'm sure money wasn't in Florence Griffith-Joyner's or Ben Jonson's or Linford Christie's or Marian Jones etc., minds when they were rapidly approaching the finishing line, positively rattling with illegal suppliments.

"I didn't know there were steroids in nasel spray" cry the innocents... READ the bloody label then.

Actually, sorry Maranello... don't get me started on the Olympics.

It's a load of bollocks.

[Maranello]

I agree, I can muster more enthusiasm for watching paint dry then for watching any of the Olympic sporting "events".

[Occasional Fan]

Originally Posted by Oliver

Can anyone remember why the Soviet and associated Warsaw pact states (not including Romania) decided not to go to the '84 Los Angeles Olympics?

I think - but I'm not going to swear to this - it was straight retaliation for the US-led boycott of the Moscow Games four years earlier.

Originally Posted by Oliver

I wonder if Eddie the Eagle was paid appearance fees for being the worsed ever Olympic ski jumper.

He wasn't. He was also furious that the British Olympic Committee refused to fund his visit to the winter games after the ones where he did us all proud. His point was that, even though he might not be world class (he wasn't sure: couldn't see the rest of the competitors through his milk-bottle glasses), he was the best ski-jumper ever to come out of the UK and he should have been allowed to represent his country. I have some sympathy with that. Well, you have to have some sympathy with anyone who is mad enough to tie two lumps of wood to his feet then slide down a 1-in-1 slope which everyone KNOWS doesn't reach the ground.

Originally Posted by Oliver

It's a load of bollocks.

That's true.

[Maranello]

Originally Posted by OF

I think - but I'm not going to swear to this - it was straight retaliation for the US-led boycott of the Moscow Games four years earlier.

That is what I have always believed based on what I have read.

Maybe they did not have time to come up with an excuse...? It is not as if there are none...the US... 1980s ... Grenada.. Nicaragua... Libya...Iran...Cambodia... Star Wars... Ronald Reagan....

.................................................. .......there are plenty of excuses that they could have found!

[Richie Benauds Love Child]

Part of me thinks thats how it should be Marranello. Who made us moral guardians of the world ? If we all pulled together over this issue it would work and carry on to other sports but it wont so part of me thinks we should go in and not worry what other people home and abroard thinks.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Maranello

I agree, I can muster more enthusiasm for watching paint dry then for watching any of the Olympic sporting "events".

Ah well, that's not strictly true for me. I love boxing.

Well, I used to love boxing. I remember an Italian heavyweight winning the gold medal on all the judges cards (and quite rightly too) in an American Olympic tournament.

Unfortunately following a couple of tournaments when the judging had been questionable the US had decided to install a sort of "SUPREME" judge who could independantly overturn any decision.

Curiously the Italian heavyweight victory was overturned by the "supreme" judge in favour of chap with a red vest and a very VERY bloodied face. Can't remember his name... he was American though.

Nothing like a bit of home bias is there?

Then in Seoul when the Korean boxer refused to leave the ring for several hours after being disqualified (presumably for beating an American) thereby causing the tournament to overrun by a day, there was uproar in the US.

Nothing like a bit of home bias is there?

I'm very much of the opinion that there should be two Olympic tournaments. I know there are already, OK three then.

But it's the one professional one with loads of money and masses of scientists and everyone drugged up to the eyeballs, so that the contest isn't who is the fastest, highest or strongest, but who has the greatest scientists and the best drugs.
Obviously prize money should be scaled in such a way as to equally reward guinea pigs (whoops I mean athletes) who live for shorter or longer times after the event.

That would be a tournament more like the Formula One circus.

The newer tournament should be a games for amateurs - clean athletes who require no prize money and just compete for the honour of the gold, silver and bronze medals of whichever Olympiad should choose to reward them. Perhaps monetary prizes could be allowed for winners of races being furthest(!) behind the times (or marks) set by the genetically "perfect" specimens that compete in the scientific games.

This would be a tournament more like show jumping. Untainted by progress... except for more technical diets for the athletes.

Ooh there's another idea... perhaps the Olympics should be only for athletes who have exactly the same diet every day.

Full English breakfast and meat and two vegetables twice. Plus a cream tea, a couple of pints at lunchtime and a bottle of wine with dinner.

RBLC will you entering the 100 yard dash? I might even go for the pole vault. If I can find a sturdy enough bar.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Occasional Fan

He [Eddie the Eagle] was also furious that the British Olympic Committee refused to fund his visit to the winter games after the ones where he did us all proud. His point was that, even though he might not be world class, he was the best ski-jumper ever to come out of the UK and he should have been allowed to represent his country. I have some sympathy with that. Well, you have to have some sympathy with anyone who is mad enough to tie two lumps of wood to his feet then slide down a 1-in-1 slope which everyone KNOWS doesn't reach the ground.

He was a celebrity seeker.

I remember him appearing on the Today programme or Nationwide a few years before his selection for the ski-jumping.
He and his brother, an equally fishy looking character, were practising skiing off sheer mountains going for fastest downhill mile records (or 100 metres or some such nonsense) and in order to prepare themselves for the massive gee forces experienced when effectively falling vertically, they had attached their skis to the top of high peformance motorcars and were being driven either along motorways (so only seventy mph then) or round race tracks (150 mph then) doesn't seem fast enough really.

IT was a silly season story, done partially to offer the viewers a laugh at the end of news and partially to raise the profile of two singularly untalented individuals.

Curious that only Eddie made it as far as Olympic ski jumping. Maybe his brother (I think it was his brother) got a massive dose of "the sensibles" before things got way too risky.

[Zainub]

Originally Posted by Oliver

Cricket seems to be prevalent in places where politics are "difficult" - for want of a better word. Rugby, not so these days. It is interesting (to me) that the Taliban, during and after Bush's biggest attempt to wipe out Bin Laden, were quoted as saying: "We like cricket." So even when total democracy returns to the cricket playing states of all of Africa, the chances are that by then Afghanistan will be an ICC or Test match second division country. English captains will be trying to avoid shaking hands with President Bin Laden IIIrd of Afghanistan in the one day series that immediately precedes the Pakistan tour and cricket will be the political tool again.

If there is a chance of that happening, then perhaps there is also a decent chance of Israel being a serious cricket playing country by then, I have a couple of friends at another MB who play for France at the under 19 level, and both were recently selected for matches of the European Cup, their group was won by Isreal, and I was told their standard was far better then the blokes from France . ....whould that mean Pakistan refuse to tour Israel on moral grounds, not sure about that. A pakistani tennis player recently partnered with an Isreali player and it was widely talked about in the media, not neccesarily criticised but just talked about quite a bit. I was Ok with it.

As far as I'm concerned sport shouldn't mix with this sort of things, it has, I know, but it hasn't been always right. If that's being naive, than so be it. Don't give me the example of SA here, because when they were banned it was a wide spread ban that just didn't cover cricket or sport alone but far from that. It was a different story then. Nobody is saying England should go to Zimbabwe if the UN and world comunity in general boycott it at every level, its another matter then.

ps: A couple of more things, firstly Formula 1 is not a circus. Secondly, Olympic sports aren't that boring. I love boxing too, and am just as mad about field hockey as football. I also have a lot of respect and admiration for all track and field atheletes. I'll stop by to watch a race or long jump competetion if it was coming on TV.

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Zainub Razvi

ps: A couple of more things, firstly Formula 1 is not a circus. Secondly, Olympic sports aren't that boring. I love boxing too, and am just as mad about field hockey as football. I also have a lot of respect and admiration for all track and field atheletes. I'll stop by to watch a race or long jump competetion if it was coming on TV.

My labelling of Formula One as a "circus" was not meant as an insult.
In this country, in the national press, Bernie Ecclestone's empire is often mentioned in the same breath as "circus." I suppose that may be something to do with his ridiculous clown-ish white haired wig... who knows?

I played field-hockey at school for a couple of years, but football is a better game (here). I know it is popular in Asia.

I agree that Olympic sports are not that boring, but I do have a major problem with any sport where performance enhancing drugs are continually in use. It is sad that some athletes do not use performance enhancing drugs... unfortunately those competitors are probably the ones that finish at the back of the field.

The funny thing about an athletics meeting is that spectators are barely interested unless records are broken.
The trouble with that today is that most of the current crop of World "bests" were recorded by athletes on some form of steroid. So clean athletes are unable to match, or even near, the records.

The year Ben Johnson was "found out" there was great up-roar - of course - and Lewis and Christie were promoted up a place. I believe those two still hold the medals for that year. Then four or so years later the man who finished third in "that" race was hauled across the coals in this country for having taken some sort of stimulant. And just in the last two years, it has emerged that the man who actually finished "second" had been taking something too.

So there you had the big bad wolf, Ben Johnson and those two wonderful "clean" athletes (and one so close to God and all). Then sixteen years later it emerges that all three had allegedley cheated.

There you go. Athletics is nonsense. Anybody know who really one the gold medal (without cheating) in the 1988 100 metres final?

I don't. Chances are, it was one of the guys who failed to make the final eight, though Calvin Smith (U.S.) finished behind Christie.