On the occasion of the end of the Olympic Games in Athens (Sunday evening) we bring an article written by Dr. Yehiam Shurk especially for the Hidan website * Dr. Shurk is an expert on the ancient world Olympics in particular and sports in general
Dr. Yehiam Sorek
Direct link to this page: https://www.hayadan.org.il/soreq300804.html
At the time, years ago, when an Israeli sports team failed in almost every famous enterprise: the European Championship, the World Championship, some international tournament, and certainly in the Olympic Games, we used to praise, and not without a degree of cynicism: "Not bad. The main thing is participation." And here, "Praise God", our athletes are successful in famous international arenas: judo, sailing, pole vaulting, chess (and ask: what about basketball? Oh well, there is an abysmal difference between Israel's representative team and the multitude of foreign players, and Yes, we are quite lame in international and Olympic positions in this field. And perhaps, the Chinese will say: it is appropriate to change the international sports constitution, and then the world will see "who is the boss", when we buy runners from Morocco, sprinters from the USA, basketball players from Argentina, swimmers from Australia, gymnasts from China and more). Success lifts our spirits, captures the ranks, inflates in our chests a spirit of national pride, and then we are all Gal Friedman (but which of us is Alex Aberbuch? Really!), and in this context the cartoon of the "Haaretz" newspaper in last Friday's issue, which showed The image of our sailor, with a gold medal on his chest and a wreath of olive leaves on his head (that's how it should be, not a laurel), and on each podium stands the people of Israel celebrating and happy, saying: "Thus shall it be done to the man who..." And have we forgotten how the Minister of Education and Culture jumps from podium to podium, hugging and kissing the winner (after all, there is nothing like exploiting a high-profile Olympic event for the benefit of internal politics in our districts), as she did with Pini Gershon after Maccabi won the European Championship and as above during the Hapoel Jerusalem basketball celebrations. Such phenomena in view of the lack of investment by the Ministry of Education in the field of sports create a ridiculous reaction and with great right. We have developed a kind of inflammatory syndrome of adoring winners, rubbing superstars in the dust, an instant attitude (here and now) towards the creation of a winner and his transformation into an idol and terrible national-mythological inferiority complexes, as if everyone is against us and has always been so. They are all anti-Semitic and slanderers. The whole world is waiting for our fall and more. And as soon as some kind of spark of light shines from the sky of the gloomy fog, the whole people, or at least most of them, gather around him, embrace him warmly, without any proportion, turn him into an idol and praise him in his idolatry (a modern edition of the mythological golden calf).
And who did we forget? Alex Aberbuch, who as a step was between his idols and renouncing him, and perhaps even disappointment, which in itself is stupid, infantile and primitive. It is almost clear that Aberbuch could have won bronze or silver, as his jumps in the recent past ranged from 5.85m to 5.93m. It could be that the high level of expectations that the Israeli public placed on him, just like four years ago at the Sydney Olympics in Australia, is what psychologically testified him. But you know what? It is not a sub rule. None of the state entourages will care for him (because who aspires to be infected with "losers"?) and the public will rush to assimilate him into the drawer of historical oblivion. Because that's how we are: obsessive idol seekers.
It is interesting to examine this phenomenon against the ancient beginnings of the sport, and the reference to the ancient Olympic games (and in general to the phenomenon of sports activity in the archaic Hellenic-Greek society). Ancient Greece also developed, and because of paganism (idol worship) a clear connection between physical activity and religious and ritual activity on the one hand and due to the emphasis on individual sports activity (hence the individual athletic activity and not the group) on the other hand, the winner was honored with a sublime honor, almost above the honor of the gods (his image was a source For sculpture, poetry and fiction. The city that sends the winning athlete took care of all his needs and even tried to entice, with various favors and pleasures, outstanding athletes to move their place of residence to it, when it wanted Bikram, and more than that - it visited.
In Greece, there were many good people who pointed out the danger inherent in this phenomenon, especially for the nature of sports and the virtue of the games, especially the Olympic Games. The athlete, so thought thinkers and public figures who care about it, might become professional (the Greeks sought to maintain, at least to a certain extent, amateurism in sports) and thereby cause the virtue of sports to be eroded in Greek society. Physical activity, it should be known, was an integral (almost obsessive) part of the Greek young man's life routine and was well invested in his education (in the "Gymnasium" - a kind of high school - half the study time was devoted to theoretical subjects and half to sports activities. The origin of the name, by the way, is "Exercise for which people dance." The competitions were held in complete nudity, and the reasons for this are many and varied.
More important is the fact that the word "athlete" in Greek (or "athleter") means one who competes for victory, and victory means winning a natural crown - a wreath woven from the branches of the olive tree (in the Olympic Games, held in honor of Zeus), or from the laurel tree (in the Pythian Games - Delphi, held in honor of Apollo), which comes to indicate, among other things, the momentary nature of the victory, and the price in blood-sweat-and-tears, which the athlete is supposed to "complete" until the next games. Well, with the exception of special cases, in which the cities of Polis lured athletes to compete for them, the athlete was not "washed" in local or regional waves of fame.
Another interpretation of "athlete" is - someone who trains for competitions. In this context, it should be noted that in various ancient Greek sources: songs and stories as well as the sayings of the Goths, an image of admiration emerges specifically for the athlete who strives to win, but fails in the competition, much more than for the one who "went easy". Here you have it: Athens of 450 BC (for example) versus Israel of 2004, when about 2500 years separate each other.
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