High Life

ian skidmore

and quite right too. I do not agree about the Chinese Opening Ceremony which was magnificent despite the carping.Taki's expose is no more than the truth When I was marginally involved in the Games in England the bribery that went on disgusted me.
I ws told by a member of the sporting hierchy that there was no chance of the water events coming to Wales. It had all been fixed the year before

Make Celebrities History

Have you noticed how sportsmen, and more particulary sportswomen (who, by definition, are not gentlemen), behave increasingly like British pop singers. That is to say, they are self-obsessed, empty headed, ill-bred and badly behaved, unsportsmanlike, must win at all costs, even at the cost of cheating, amd seize any opportunity to talk immodestly in public about themselves. In Australia recently a girl called Jana, face like the back of a bus and something to do with hurdles, erupted on television screens in Australia (where women seem to have disproportionate levels of testosterone) to tell a grateful world about her injuries and their effect on her career. To hear her talk, you might have thought she had discovered a cure for AIDS or located and arrested Osama bin Laden. She was in her own estimation both the medium and the message. We live in an age when actors and hurdle runners give press conferences (viz Russell Crowe in Berlin), and rock singers lecture Presidents about poverty in Africa.Where shall we find the next shallow to plumb?

Bruce Gee

Taki,
It was Tony Madigan from Australia and I totally agree with all your comments re the current corrupt Olympic shambles.

Bart

It comes as no surprise that Taki, the Balkan lounge lizard, admires Avery Brundage. After all, Brundage was a Nazi sympathizer who, in his role as head of the USOC, barred Jewish American athletes, such as Marty Glickman, who had earned their spots on the team, from participation in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. He claimed that he didn't want to offend Nazi Germany. In 1972, Brundage,as head of the IOC, insisted that the 1972 Munich Games continue even after the murder of the 11 Israeli athletes at the hands of PLO terrorists. Brundage also opposed any efforts to ban apartheid-era South Africa's Whites-only teams from participating in the Olympics. His commitment to amateurism did not prevent him from turning a blind eye to the corrupt practices of totalitarian states of right and left, while castigating Americans and others who wanted a level playing field.

Brundage was garbage and it is not surprising that the louche annelid Taki admires him.

Aussie runner

Taki I agree re '60 = abebe a real olympic hero - he also went on to represent ethiopia at paralympics in archery. Also agree future games should be in Greece - I would also suggest that to be true to original games all participants should compete nude.

david

Yes, the 1960 Games were magnificent. I was there as a teenager, nervously waiting for my exam results. Wilma Rudolph had long, long legs and grace. Mary Rand (then Bignall)was just "emerging". In the 100 metres, Norton and his U.S. colleague took it in turns to "beat the gun" in order to disturb Hary, but he left them at the eventual start. Yes, John Thomas (what a name !) lost the high jump and, scarily, the German chanting at that end of the stadium had Nurembourg echoes. My memory (nostalgia?)tells me Milka Singh won the 400 metres, but no matter. His silky smooth style was a joy. However, my nomination for the star of the Games would be either the Italian 200 metres gold winner Livio Berutti (imagine the effect of his running in sun glasses on this teenager)or Peter Snell. Snell was unknown outside N.Z. and all the Antipodean attention was focussed on Herb Elliot, but I saw him burst through the field beginning down the back straight in the 800 metres semi-final. My father had a ticket for the final the following day and I told him to look out for this barrel-chested unknown, who was bound to win. As they say, the rest is history.

Paskalis

Four replies to a Taki column is quite a groundswell. The number falls far short of that for an add for an ointment promising miracle hair growth, of course, but it encourages the suspicion that someone might actually be reading this stuff.

Colonial

Where does Paskalis get the idea that there is a formula which says that comment posted is in direct proportion to readership? Taki tends to air what is largely considered factual by his conservative readership. It is a group unimpressed with the wet left and bling encrusted newly rich who now infest the world. And are not worth the bother of comment, which would anyway go over their heads. Sure, an unbecomingly randy old goat and a bit of a snob. But so what?