Defenders of a disappearing faith

print this

By Matti Keppo
     
      A slim man dances around a fencing hall in downtown Helsinki. The knees bend, and the feet creep along an invisible line with light steps. A sharp lunge with the epee sword. Touché. With the protective helmet covering his face, you would never guess fencing instructor Kurt Lindeman is 72 years old.
      "The jacket of the coach is black, so that no blood can be seen on it. You must preserve authority", explains Lindeman, while removing his helmet.
      It is difficult to tell from the sharp gaze of the Lieutenant Colonel whether he is serious or not. He is definitely not smiling.
     
Lindeman, who represented Finland in the modern pentathlon at the Olympics of 1952 and 1960, is not the last of his breed. The sport will continue without him - although perhaps not at the Olympics.
      According to critics at the International Olympic Committee, too few people practice the sport, and it does not interest the media. It also attracts fewer sponsors than for example beach volley, which is highly television-friendly and has been an Olympic event since 1996.
      The union of the Olympics and market forces has placed a squeeze on the modern pentathlon. The event used to last five days, now all disciplines are pressed into one day. Everything happens in places accessible to television cameras, on the terms of the spectators. The cross-country run at the Sydney Olympics was staged at the baseball stadium, and the riding discipline has been switched from cross-country to show jumping. Powder guns have made way for air pistols, the duration of the fencing has been cut to one fifth of what it was, and the swimming distance has been shortened.
      The modern pentathlon will be in the Olympics in Beijing in 2008, but thereafter its fate is unknown.
     
The pentathlon has an old-fashioned military sound. The sport originally attracted officers, which served the ideals of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who contributed to the rise of the Olympics: soldiers faced each other at the Olympics in a fair spirit, not on the battlefield. The pentathlon was the Baron's idea of the perfect Olympic sport: the ideal, sports, and character-building all in the same package.
      The Olympics are no longer what they were in the days of the Baron. That is obvious, and Lindeman is well aware of it.
      "My father was in the military and I have lived in a barracks area all my life. Captain Tor Lindblad was a skilled pentathlete, but he did not have enough opponents among the people in the barracks. That is why he began to train us boys. That is how it got started."
      A mixture of athlete and officer can be sensed in the military academy graduate. Lindeman sticks to the facts, but is extremely polite. Manners above all.
      "An athlete who represents his or her country and goes to the Olympic Games must know how to behave, how to win, and how to lose at the Olympics."
     
Lindeman is an athlete, so he looks at matters from the stadium level. The question of Olympic ideals makes him uncomfortable.
      "The Olympic ideals serve peace, but on the starting line things like that do not cross your mind. All you think about is doing as well as possible. A fair competition is the number one requirement and the athletes enjoy it."
      "Professional sports have changed the entire Olympic spirit. It is hard to say what is right, though. At least those of us who went to the Rome Olympics from Finland had jobs that were taken care of first. If you want to succeed nowadays, you need to work in a completely different manner."
      "The great thing about the games is that everyone can compete under the Olympic flag. Regardless of ideologies and politics." We shake hands, as the fencing instructor is needed for a lesson.
     
Professor Kalevi Heinilä is a former player of Finland's version of baseball, pesäpallo, but above all a sociologist. He looks at the bigger picture. Is there any point in how things are these days, he asks.
      The goals of Baron de Coubertin were grand. He believed in sports as a force that could change the world. He hoped that peace, friendship, and understanding could be spread through the Olympics. Sport was valuable in itself, but it also had an educational role. Money was seen to ruin the purity of sports. The commercial and political misuse of sports and athletes is denounced by the IOC.
      Were the Olympic ideals utopian? Perhaps, but the significance of the ideals was that they represented something greater than sports, something that would lead mankind into a better direction.
     
According to Heinilä, the values of the Olympics are a cover-up ideology. What is important in top-level sports is exertion and national success. Heinilä says that this would not be ethically sustainable.
      A longing for the days when sport was fair and clean of doping can be detected in Heinilä's words. The professor is concerned about the message that modern sport conveys.
      "The consequence of never-ending competition is a rise in the level of demands. In order to survive in the arms race you must succeed and produce results. And when the results come in, the true winners are somewhere else", Heinilä says, referring to doping.
      However, the professor does admit that the world has changed. Top-level sports simply reflect the values of society.
     
The business world has adopted the Olympic slogan Citius, altius, fortius. Star athletes quickly become the mannequins of international conglomerates. The price-tags on television deals become more and more exorbitant with every games, and corporations invest more and more in the advertising campaigns for their official Olympic products.
      "Corporations view the Olympics as a positive and happy mega-class event", explains Mika Raulas, the head of the Center of Direct Marketing Excellence. For the athletes, a victory in the Olympics is a huge thing, which brings along a rush of deep emotions. This makes the Olympics interesting for brands.
      "For the IOC, sponsors are a solution that they are forced to take, but top sports is dependent on sponsors. Of course you could ask whether the Olympic movement has begun to risk its purity due to commercialism", Raulas says.
     
Laura Salminen, 17, sits in the other fencing hall at the Helsinki gym. She is taking the modern pentathlon seriously: her aim is set on the Beijing Olympics, four years hence.
      Laura Salminen is not able to fence at this very moment, as her hamstring hurts. In fencing, one needs to flex leg muscles in uncomfortable positions almost constantly, and injuries are commonplace. Her father does not want Laura to fence even for a photograph, so that the injury is not aggravated.
      Competition in the modern pentathlon is as tight as in any other sport.
      Athletes have used sedatives to keep their arms steady during the shooting. The wiring in the swords has been tampered with so that hits have been registered during the fencing when so desired. As a matter of fact, the first athlete in history to test positive for a banned substance was a pentathlete. Traces of alcohol were discovered in the blood of Swede Hans-Gunnar Liljenwall at the Mexico Olympics in 1968. Liljenwall maintained that he had only consumed two beers.
     
Laura Salminen is focusing on a sport that is threatened by the death penalty.
      "I started training for the pentathlon three years ago. First I competed in modified triathlons where the disciplines are swimming, running, and shooting. That is how I got started. My father tried to keep me away from it at first because he knew how much time it requires."
      "I finished school one year ago. I train for the pentathlon full-time now, every day except on Sundays. This is like a profession."
      Her father Veikko Salminen provides a detailed description of how Laura's injury occurred and what it will mean. He has competed in the modern pentathlon in three Olympics, and is very familiar with the ailments of athletes. At home he has a bronze medal from the Munich Olympics of 1972.
     
Last year, Laura Salminen won the gold medal at the European Championships for B-juniors in Bulgaria. She placed fifth in the World Championships for A-juniors, who are one year her senior. She may well make the team for the Beijing Olympics.
      Although the pentathlon represents the Baron's Olympic philosophy, Laura Salminen probably does not spend much time pondering that. She is just like any other promising athlete who wants his or her name immortalised in the Olympic Museum in Lausanne. The only problem is that time is running out.
      "I have four years to work hard and prove what I can do. The Olympics are the greatest competition that an athlete can participate in. I would not start to train for a sport that is not an Olympic event."
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 15.8.2004


Links:
  The Modern Pentathlon in Athens 2004

MATTI KEPPO / Helsingin Sanomat