Column

The Olympics tell us much more than just about individuals, teams and countries winning medals. In many ways, they tell us of how the human race is evolving, and how nations and societies shape themselves. Which is why China’s rise to ‘superpower’ status at the Beijing Olympics is as fascinating as the (relative) failure of the Islamic world to make a big impact — yet again.

The complete data on how many medals the Islamic world has won should be available in a couple of days, but I reckon it won’t be much more than in the 2004 Olympics at Athens. Indeed, the results of four years ago provide some interesting facts and trends for study. For instance, the 57 Islamic countries that participated at Athens won only 47 medals (of which 13 were gold), but more than half of these came from countries like Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan that belonged to the erstwhile Soviet Union where a strong sporting tradition had been well-established. That trend continues in Beijing.

Considering that the Islamic world constitutes almost 20 per cent of the human race, and the fact that at least 50 per cent of this world has pretty hefty per capita income, this is meagre achievement. Considering also that the Islamic world cuts across virtually all races, cultures and most continents, the problem seems to be widespread, not ‘localised’ in the Middle East as may be imagined.

I was surfing the net for some answers to the conundrum when I chanced upon this article by Amir Taheri in the Gulf News of September 1, 2004. Taheri is an Iranian who has lived in Teheran, London and Paris, and edited the French weekly Jeune Afrique between 1984-1987. I have culled out three factors he cites as significant to explain why Muslim nations do so badly in international sports:

a) the marginal place that Muslim nations play in a world in the creation of which they did not play a part and in which they do not feel at ease.

b) Islamic theologians are opposed to sport because it requires physical contact. Iranian mullahs, for example, have tried for decades to ban free-style wrestling, a sport that has a history of 3,000 yearsin the country, because of fears that it might encourage homosexual tendencies between adversaries.

c) the virtually total absence of women. In Athens women athletes represented 39 per cent of the total. In the case of the Muslim delegations, however, women accounted for 9 per cent. Some Muslim nations had no women at all… In some countries, including Saudi Arabia, physical education is forbidden for girls. By denying more than half of their population the opportunity to engage in any sport, Muslim nations reduce their overall chances of winning medals.

This makes for a grim tale of alienation and self-absorption. Sports, especially the Olympics, makes for participatory co-existence, never mind the jingoism that accompanies winning medals. Like everybody else does, I think the Islamic world too needs to chase an Olympic dream.

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Michael Phelps is now widely regarded as the greatest Olympian of all time after winning an unprecedented eight gold medals at Beijing but I would still vote for Usain Bolt as the biggest hero of the 2008 Games. The tall and sinewy Jamaican brought an energy, colour, character and charisma to the Olympics that perhaps nobody has: not in Beijing, not earlier. He ran three sprints, won three golds and set three world records. Gosh!

The sprints are obviously the most glamorous events at any such meet, but the regimen and focus needed to excel in these events is often obscured by the fact that a race lasts less than 10 seconds (100m), or 20 seconds (200m). Which is why when sprinters say they live an entire lifetime in that brief spell of time, it is hardly an exaggeration.
At one time, Bolt was toying with the idea of becoming a cricketer (and fast bowler, like most young Jamaicans), but gave this up for the exhilaration of running the sprints. Just as well. The cricket world may have lost a potentially great fast bowler, but has gained the greatest sprinter of all time.

Email: ayaz@dnaindia.net