Simone soars as Sonia stumbles
PART 3: 30-21 ALEKSANDR THE GREAT IS BEATEN
THE nicknames go some way to telling the story of Aleksandr Karelin, the greatest GrecoRoman wrestler of all time.
He has been nicknamed ‘Russian Bear’, ‘King Kong’, ‘Aleksandr the Great’ and ‘The Experiment’. He was a remarkable athlete, a 6ft 4in powerhouse who went unbeaten between 1987 and 2000 and won three gold medals in the process.
Then he came up against Rulon Gardner in the final of Sydney 2000. Gardner, an American dairy farmer, was decent. But spectacular? Not so much. He had never finished higher than fifth in a world championships and Karelin had won nine. To add to the picture, Karelin had not dropped a point in a contest in six years.
But then he lost his grip for a fraction of the smallest of moments in the second period of the final. And the judges deliberated, a little confused. They thought about it, and agreed, and scored a point to Gardner. And that was it, 1-0. And Karelin never wrestled again.
COGHLAN’S AGONY
A MEASURE of Eamonn Coghlan’s athletics reputation can be gleaned from Sports Illustrated. Even in an age of struggling print titles, appearing on the cover of the most prestigious magazine in American sport remains a career high.
Coghlan did it three times. He was one of the most successful athletes in the world for much of the 1970s and 1980s. He broke the world record for the indoor mile in 1979, bettering his time in 1981 and again in 1983.
That latter time stood as the record for 14 years.
His brilliance as an indoor runner led to the famous nickname, the Chairman of the Boards. Outdoors, he won the 5,000m World Championships in 1983.
His Olympic story is a more agonising one. Twice, he came fourth in Olympic finals.
In Montreal in 1976, he moved too early in the 1500m and over the final lap he was overtaken and too spent to kick.
Four years later in Moscow, he had been injured and ill in the build-up to the final of the 5,000m but still led with less than a lap to go.
However, he ran out of fuel and was overtaken again. Once more, fourth was his lot.
THE GOLDEN HOUR
THERE has never been an hour like it in Irish sport.
At the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, Bob Tisdall won gold in the 400m hurdles. When done with that, he strolled over to where Dr Pat O’Callaghan was preparing for the final round of the hammer throw.
Tisdall helped O’Callaghan file his spikes, and then watched as his team-mate won gold, too.
Tisdall was born in the British colony of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), but had roots in Tipperary. He proved himself a highly accomplished athlete as a student at Cambridge, and he later wrote to the head of the Irish
Olympic movement, asking to be considered for selection to the Irish team ahead of the 1932 Games.
That was Eoin O’Duffy, a man better known for his passionate support for Franco during the Spanish Civil War, and raising a brigade to fight on the side of fascism in that conflict.
O’Duffy invited Tisdall to trial for the Irish team, giving him two opportunities to do so before Tisdall eventually made the qualifying time. In the Olympic final, Tisdall broke the world record in finishing in a time of 51.67 seconds. Under the rules of the time, the fact he knocked a hurdle meant it didn’t qualify as a world record. O’Callaghan, meanwhile, was another intriguing character. A Corkman, he qualified as a surgeon at the age of 20 and Los Angeles was his second Olympic gold, after victory in Amsterdam in 1928. The latter victory was the first time an Irish athlete won an Olympic gold medal competing under an Irish rather than British flag.
TAYLOR’S DEFEAT
THE interview with Katie Taylor on national television after her staggering defeat to Mira Potkonen of Finland reduced much of the country to emotional wrecks. Taylor could hardly speak with disappointment and shock. She was the best fighter in the world, but her form had been shaky in the lead-up to Rio. She lost at the world championships the previous May, the first time in 11 years she had lost on that stage.
And the split with her father, Pete, as her coach, had a major effect in both sporting and personal terms.
The sight of Taylor so crestfallen was still deeply moving, though.
‘I should be beating those girls,’ she said, in a kind of wonder, at the end of her fight.
That wasn’t arrogance, it was just how her fighting life had been for years.
Speculation about her future had been humming prior to those Olympics, and her Rio disappointment sealed the deal. She had turned professional by the following autumn, and her pro career has thrived since.
But the memory of that Olympic defeat will not easily dim. After the joys of London, Taylor had a crushing loss to absorb. It was little consolation that most observers were convinced she had beaten Potkonen.
PRICELESS CZECH
EMIL ZATOPEK was known as the ‘Czech Locomotive’, which flatters trains everywhere.
What he achieved at the 1952 Olympics still defies logic, given he won the 5,000m and 10,000m four days apart and then, three days after the longer final, attempted his first marathon. He won that too, achieving a treble that has never been equalled.
The ‘Flying Finn’ Paavo Nurmi won five golds at the 1924 Olympics spanning the 1500m, the cross country discipline and the 5,000m, but it is hard to compare anything to the sheer range of Zatopek.
CUBAN LOYALTY
COMPETING claims on greatness could be made by Teofilo Stevenson and his fellow Cuban, Felix Savon, in any Olympic list. These two mighty fighters share the distinction of three Olympic gold medals apiece and could surely have won more if Cuba had not boycotted the Games of ’84 and ’88.
The balance tips fractionally in favour of Stevenson, who would have had a shout at five gold medals after his heavyweight wins in 1972, 1976 and 1980, given he was still winning world titles in 1986. His defining moment perhaps came in winning in 1980, having turned down $5million to leave Cuba for a fight with Muhammad
Ali, saying: ‘What is one million dollars compared to the love of eight million Cubans?’
24 BILES MILES AHEAD
EVEN in an era of great sporting champions, no one is able to crush and destroy opposition with the same elegance or brutality as that routinely managed by a 4ft 8in gymnast from Columbus, Ohio.
What tiny Simone Biles does in her area of expertise is without equal.
This has never been exhibited in a more startling manner than in the all-around event at the Rio Olympics of 2016. This the most prized event in gymnastics, and yet it was the one in which rivals openly admitted they were fighting for silver.
While the sight of Biles contorting through the air is truly remarkable and one which all sports fans should seek out as a matter of urgency, her numbers tell the best story.
In that all-around final, her margin of victory over silver was 2.1pts. To put that in context, since the 1972 Olympics, the margin of victory in the women’s all-around had never been more than 0.7pts.
More amazing still, if you add up all the winning margins since 1976, it still doesn’t hit 2.1pts. Biles went on to win four golds and a bronze at Rio and has a further 23 world titles aged 23. She is a wonder of the sporting world.
23 THE MOUSTACHE AND THE MEDALS
HARD as it is to believe, Mark Spitz once doubted himself.
The American who occasionally gave the impression he could walk on water if he wasn’t swimming in it, once felt his confidence shaken.
The point of doubt came at the 1972 Olympics where he built his legend.
His plan had been to contest six events owing to his reservations about how he would do in the 100m freestyle, which he explained to a poolside reporter. ‘If I swim six and win six, I’ll be a hero. If I swim seven and win six, I’ll be a failure.’
Having convinced himself to take on the 100m freestyle, he won and broke the world record, just as he won and broke the world record in each of the 200m freestyle, 100m butterfly, 200m butterfly, 4×100m freestyle relay, 4×200m freestyle relay, and 4×100m medley relay.
His haul of seven golds in a single Games was not bettered until Michael Phelps arrived in Beijing in 2008.
22 A DOPING DISASTER
THE draw for the boxing tournament was being made in an unremarkable building in Rio.
These occasions are always slowed down by interminable bureaucracy, but there was a large Irish contingent present.
This was because in 2016, boxing looked Ireland’s best guarantee of Olympic glory. Katie Taylor was the favourite to retain her lightweight title, while the fruits of the high performance unit, harvested in 2008 and 2012, were also expected to be bountiful.
Disaster would befall Taylor in her first bout, and no other Irish fighter would make a podium.
But the real disaster befell the team on the morning of the draw as phones began to trill with reports of a failed doping test.
The Irish coaches in attendance would not comment, fleeing to their bus and refusing to answer questions that were shouted in the door.
Michael O’Reilly was eventually banned for four years, and Ireland’s boxing ambitions were battered before a bell even sounded.
21 ATLANTA MISERY
SONIA O’SULLIVAN went to the 1996 Olympics as the 5,000m world champion. She was, by that point, one of the outstanding athletes in the world, a famous name who had shown her fortitude in rebounding from the disappointment of 1993.
It was at the World Championships that year that Ma’s Army emerged, denying O’Sullivan gold in the 1500m where she took silver, and keeping her out of the medals entirely in the 3,000m.
The Chinese athletes that trained under Ma Junren attracted instant suspicions – and they were eventually justified when his athletes began admitting, years later, to doping.
O’Sullivan was not deterred by what happened, starring in Gothenburg in 1995 and going to Atlanta strongly fancied to become Ireland’s second Olympic track champion after Ronnie Delany.
Instead, O’Sullivan trailed hundreds of metres behind the medallists in the final of the 5000m, her face strained with stress.
‘Lads, nobody died tonight,’ her father, John, told the Irish media after the race.
Those Olympics would come to be dominated by another Irish woman, but O’Sullivan’s disappointment remains a vivid Irish memory.
So, too, does the courage she showed to rebound four years later.
But that final in Atlanta provided unforgettable proof that in sport, nothing is guaranteed.