Olympic Champion Carl Lewis

There are a great many outstanding, memorable, and famous Olympic athletes, but right there in the top echelon is Carl Lewis. Carl Lewis is definitely, memorable and definitely a champion by anybody's standards!

Carl Lewis won 10 Olympic medals, and nine of them were gold medals. He also won 10 World Championship medals and eight of those were gold, too.Lewis won a lot of contests and set a lot of records in the long jump and the 100 meters, and he was very well known — some might say famous — in the rest of the world. But in the United States, track and field isn't big. It wasn't big then and it isn't big now, so most Americans had no idea who Lewis was. It didn't take long for them to find out.

As luck would have it, America was in for a real treat. The Olympic Games were held in Los Angeles, California, in 1984 and there was a champion waiting in the wings to make America proud — that champion was Carl Lewis.

Lewis, when asked what his goal in life was, said, "To become rich and famous." That's easier said than done, of course.

Lewis's main competitor and sometimes nemesis was the Canadian Ben Johnson. There was a lot of "talk" and many accusations exchanged. The competition between the two men could not be called "friendly."

At the 1988 Olympic Games, Ben Johnson narrowly beat Carl Lewis in the 100-meter final. After the race, Johnson said, "They can break my record, but they can't take my gold medal away." Johnson was wrong. They in fact did take his medal away three days later, when he tested positive for steroids, and Lewis was awarded the gold medal.

Drugs, Athletes and the Olympic Games

Athletes are competitive. Olympic athletes are more competitive than others. No matter what sport they compete in, it is the goal of an Olympic athlete to be the best in the whole world at his sport of choice. If the athlete runs, he wants to run ever faster. If the athlete jumps, he wants to jump higher or longer. If the athlete swims, he'd like to have the endurance of a fish.

Athletic competition on the Olympic level creates a situation that is ripe for the abuse of drugs that will enhance physical prowess and performance. It should come as no surprise that "doping" in the Olympic Games has been the lead story of TV news broadcasts and made the headlines of newspapers all over the world.

The history of the use of performance-enhancing drugs in the Olympics can be traced back as far as 1904. Thomas J. Hicks won the marathon that year and it was later found that his coach had given him strychnine and brandy before and during the race. Over the years, the performance-enhancing drugs have become more and more sophisticated and harder and harder to test for.

If as much effort had been put into finding a cure for cancer as has been put into developing better and less traceable performance-enhancing drugs, perhaps the world would be cancer-free by now.

We'll never know how much doping occurred in the Olympic Games before 1967 because there were no doping rules in place before then. In 1960, road cyclist Knud Enemark Jensen fell off of his bicycle and later died. It was proven that Jensen was under the influence of amphetamines at the time of his death. So far, Jensen's is the only death caused by doping during the Olympic Games, but it may not be the last.

Olympic Champion Mark Spitz

There will never be another Olympian athlete who created as much excitement as Mark Spitz, or as much controversy. Mark Spitz's career is filled with moments of unbelievable triumph and devastating failure. It seems that Mark is either on top of a mountain or at the bottom of the sea, with nothing much in between.

Mark Spitz started swimming at the ripe old age of nine. His dad took Mark to the Arden Hills Swim Club to train under the celebrated Sherm Chavoor. Chavoor was a lifelong mentor to Spitz. (At the age of 73, Chavoor died of cancer in 1973.)

Mark was every coach's dream athlete. By the time he was 10 years old, he already held 17 national age-group records and one world record. No doubt, visions of Olympic gold medals were dancing in the heads of his father and his coach. Mark's dad told him, "Swimming isn't everything; winning is!" Apparently Mark took that thought to heart, because he did some serious winning.

To say that Mark Spitz got a tad cocky would be an understatement. He became a little too sure of himself and, apparently believing all of his press, bragged before the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, Mexico, that he would "win six golds." He didn't.

Mark rededicated himself to training and by the time the 1972 Olympics held in Munich, Germany, rolled around, he was ready. He won a total of seven gold medals (three individual medals and four team medals). It's still a record.

Tragedy struck. The 1972 Munich Massacre happened. People died. Spitz, who is Jewish, was truly afraid for his life. He left to go to London before the closing ceremonies.

Mark Spitz today lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two sons. He engages in his favorite activities — sailing and traveling — as often as possible. Spitz describes himself as "an entrepreneur."

Politics, History, IOC and the Olympic Games

The Olympic Games draw the attention of the entire world. It's a situation that is completely irresistible to a politician. All of that "limelight" practically demands that they somehow get into the act and get their "message" out there.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) does its best to keep politics out of the Olympic Games, but that's nearly an impossible task. The first time that the Olympic Games were used by a politician for personal gain was in 1936 when Hitler used the Olympic Games that were held in Berlin to further his cause.

The athletes themselves rarely express their political opinions. The athlete's objective is the competition rather than furthering a political cause — usually. During those same Olympic Games in 1936 that Hitler used to further his political cause, Luz Long (of Germany) helped Jesse Owens (an African American) win the long jump, at the expense of his own silver medal.

There was one occasion, however, where the athletes themselves were involved in using the Olympic Games to further their own political agenda. It happened during the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. Two black track and field athletes from the United States, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, while standing on the victory stand after the 200-meter track-and-field race, performed the "Black Power" salute.

The IOC was not amused. The then president of the IOC, Avery Brundage, gave the United States Olympic Committee a choice. They could either send Tommie Smith and John Carlos home, or withdraw the complete track and field team. The two athletes were sent home.

Politics are still alive and well in the Olympic Games today, but rather than political statements being made during the games, governments opt to boycott the games altogether or they refuse to allow their athletes to compete against athletes of a rival political faction and depend on the media to get their message out.

For example, the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran specifically orders its athletes not to compete in any Olympic heat, semifinal, or final that includes athletes from Israel, and the media publicizes the reason for the lack of participation by the Iranian team.

Olympic Champion Paavo Nurmi

"Success in sport as in almost anything comes from devotion. The athlete must make a devotion of his specialty." That is what Paavo Nurmi is quoted as having said. He should know!

Paavo Nurmi is arguably the most famous person to ever hail from Finland. During the late 1920s, Finland had just gained its independence from Russia. It had been a long and difficult journey and Finland had little standing among the free nations of the world. It is said that Paavo Nurmi ran Finland onto the world map. That's a good description of what his successes in running accomplished.

Paavo was a very private person who didn't really like being in the spotlight. It's said that he had "tunnel vision" when it came to running. Running was his passion, and he was never satisfied with his performance — not even when he won gold medals.

In spite of his dislike of the spotlight, however, Paavo was seen as the unofficial goodwill ambassador for Finland at a time when Finland needed all the help that it could get.

Paavo Nurmi was an athlete who was way ahead of his time. He trained with an intensity and determination never before seen in athletics of any kind. All that Paavo Nurmi was interested in was running. It was his passion and his sole ambition was to run faster and further than any human being before him.

He used a stopwatch to increase his speed and his endurance and over a running career that lasted 12 years, he set 25 world records at distances from 1,500 meters to 20,000 meters.

He was born in 1897 in Turku, a city in southwestern Finland. Paavo Nurmi died at the age of 76 and he was laid to rest in his hometown in 1973.

Olympic Champion Nikolai Andrianov

Nikolai Andrianov has gone down in Olympic history as one of the all-time great gymnasts, but it was a long and rocky road for him. Things didn't start out with the best of circumstances for young Nikolai Andrianov. When he was only 11 years old, his father deserted the family. Life for the family — Nicolai, his mother, and three sisters — was difficult, to say the least.

Nikolai reacted to his father's desertion and the subsequent lack of income by becoming a "bad" boy or a "wild child." He picked fights. He skipped school. His teachers considered him incorrigible. To say that things were not going well is an understatement.

Then one day a friend of Nikolai's, Zhenya Skurlov, talked young Nikolai into going to a gymnastics class with him. Nikolai was a natural and the teacher, Nikolai Tolkachev, agreed to coach him.

It was apparent to Tolkachev that Nikolai needed a strong masculine influence in his life, and so Tolkachev took Andrianov to live with him. After only five years of instruction, Nikolai Andrianov made his debut as a gymnast at the Junior Spartakiade in Yerevan, USSR. A year later, Andrianov earned an alternate spot on the 1970 Worlds team.

Nikolai continued to hone his craft and continued to collect medal after medal. Finally, his big chance came at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, Canada. He collected seven Olympic medals — four gold medals, two silver medals, and one bronze medal. He was also awarded Best All Around.

Nikolai Andrianov retired from competing in 1980 and took over as head of the Vladimir gymnastics school, replacing his coach Nikolai Tolkachev. Later, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Nikolai Andrianov relocated to Japan, where he now coaches Japanese gymnasts.

The 1972 Munich Massacre and Olympic Games

It happened during the 1972 Summer Olympic Games that were held in Munich, West Germany, and it remains one of the darkest days in Olympic Games history. The "Munich Massacre," as it has come to be known, started when men from the militant group Black September took members of the Israeli Olympic team hostage.

Black September had close ties with the Palestinian National Liberation Movement, or Fatah. The leader of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement was the infamous Yasser Arafat. Tensions were high, to put it mildly.

Before the Munich Massacre was over, 11 Israeli athletes and coaches and one German police officer were dead. Five of the eight Black September terrorists were also dead. It was a dark time in the world. The Olympic Games, the very symbol of world peace and unity, had been violated.

In an effort to erase the bad memories of the 1936 Olympic Games that were held in Berlin, the West German Olympic Committee intentionally relaxed security at the Olympic Village. There were no armed guards, and the athletes came and went as they pleased. They were never, or at least rarely, asked to show their identification when leaving or entering the village. It turned out to be a recipe for disaster.

There have been rumors about the participation of West Germany in the Munich Massacre. Nothing has ever been proven, but the events pretty much speak for themselves. The three Black September terrorists who were captured were later released after a Lufthansa airline was hijacked. Lufthansa is based in what was then West Germany.

Since that horrible day that began at 4:30 AM on September 5, 1972, security for all Olympic athletes has been vigilant, to say the least. Some Olympic athletes complain about the degree of security, but in light of the Munich Massacre, it is unlikely that security will ever again be lax.