KIMIKO
HIRAI SOLDATI
OFFICIAL SITE
|
OFFICIAL SITE |
|
U.S. athletes keeping patriotism to a minimum By CHRISTIE
BLATCHFORD ATHENS -- If, as the author John Updike once wrote, "America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy", at the moment it is also one which appears to have upon much of the rest of the world precisely the opposite effect. Rarely has the divide between the naturally ebullient Yank with his patriotic heart beating a hole through the sleeve upon which he wears it, and the irritation-to-rage the mere sight of him provokes in others been so potentially explosive as at the Athens Olympics. The Americans are here in force, the largest team with 538 athletes, and poised to do what they have been doing with remarkable regularity for 108 years, since the first modern Olympics were held in Greece -- and that is, win the most medals. And they are set to do it in a country where anti-American sentiment has long thrived, where the U.S. military base on Crete is a festering national sore. And just five months ago, 10,000 Athenians marched to the U.S. embassy in a furious reminder of the one-year anniversary of the start of the war on Iraq. Thus, in the enormous security exercise that will cost at minimum $1.2-billion (measured in U.S. dollars, naturally) at these Games, it is the Americans who bear the brunt of all that concern. It is they who go virtually nowhere unaccompanied by muscle of some description and who in special 90-minute briefings are warned they may get "hostile reactions" from Olympic crowds and to incorporate that into their preparation, and urged to use what is delicately called common sense, such as not wearing their uniforms when on social outings out of the various compounds in which they live, train and compete. Not even U.S reporters are exempt from such suggestions, with Bryan Burwell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch saying yesterday, in a discussion with U.S. divers about security, that he was advised before coming to Greece to "wear Pumas instead of Nikes, and get a backpack with a Canadian flag." And none other than the American chef de mission, former two-time Olympian Herman Frazier, speaks of "a new tradition" being established here, in terms of team comportment. For a nation whose athletes and fans both are notorious for the "USA! USA! USA!" chant and whose Olympic television coverage has been oft-jingoistic, Athens may well mark the start of a new era. It will certainly mean the striking of a fine balance, best typified by a thoughtful answer the springboard diver Kimiko Soldati gave yesterday when asked if her team is hanging the Stars and Stripes at the athletes' village. "The flag is up in our apartment," she said. "I think the thing is not to flaunt it in the world's face. Americans can be viewed as sometimes crossing the line between righteous patriotism and obnoxiousness." Soldati is a Texas girl via a Japanese-American father, who was born in a U.S. internment camp, and whose grandma still remembers the day the family was rounded up and taken from their house, and how the last thing she saw as she was led away were all the doilies on the tables. Soldati is also a typical American athlete, so utterly unafraid of failure that, like four of her 10 teammates, she said flatly, "My goal here is to win a gold medal", and an astonishingly tough cookie. Eight years ago, doing a dive off a 10-metre platform at the U.S. Olympic trials, she wasn't holding her right arm properly tight, and as a result, when she hit the water, the arm flew back and tore the bicep off the bone. She has had four major surgeries since, and just recently had her fourth cortisone shot to try to reduce the inflammation in her shoulder and render the pain manageable. Two days ago, not only was she unable to dive, she couldn't even lift her arm above the shoulder to wash her hair or put it in a ponytail. Yet when the competition starts tomorrow, Soldati will be there. "My arm could be falling off," she said, "and I'd still compete." She epitomizes what the U.S. head coach, Ken Armstrong, describes as the chief characteristic of his divers, and what may even define the American athlete -- "not arrogance, but confidence." Armstrong is a Canadian by birth and citizenship, from Ingersoll, Ont., where a brother and his parents still live, and a former three-time Canadian Olympian and coach of the 1984 Canadian Olympic team. "That's 30 years of my life," he said fondly, and those Canadian roots and ties, he believes, allow him able to be objective -- about his divers, about Canada's (for whom he has nothing but praise and said, "If we don't win, they better"), and about America's uneasy place in the world. "There's lots of anti-Americanism in Europe," he said. "We [the diving team] haven't been run into any of it yet, but in February at a meet in Barcelona, the synchro team was booed at their venue. It's sad, because the Olympics is the only event in the whole world that brings the world together, in peace." Like many U.S. officials, Armstrong is hoping the Americans will be warmly welcomed as they enter the Olympic Stadium today at the opening ceremonies -- not in their accustomed place at the rear of the pack, but rather, thanks to the Greek alphabet, somewhere in the middle. He wants this first for the athletes, but also for himself, because though he carries "Canada in my heart," he identifies himself now as a Texan (he went to the University of Texas) and an American. "I love it," he said with a grin. "I can't figure out why my parents weren't there in the beginning." Whatever reception greets the U.S. team, the woman who will feel it first is Dawn Staley, the three-time Olympian and double gold medalist with the American women's basketball team who was just chosen by team captains as the U.S. flag-bearer. One of 14 nominees, Staley was honoured by her selection, but didn't even vote for herself. "I voted for Kevin Hall," she said with a catch in her throat, "a member of the sailing team who was stricken with cancer. He still has it." There was some question if his medical drug regimen would even allow him to compete. Staley, 34, is from a tough Philadelphia neighbourhood, where she has, through her own foundation, set up study and sports programs for "some other little girl or boy who looks like me [she is black] and who not a lot of people give a chance to" can succeed as she has. "I'm a proud American," she said. "I can't control how other people see us. My life has been tremendous in our country. I love the country I live in, and I'm gonna walk through that stadium as proud as can be." Something entirely different may be happening outside America's borders, but Updike's vast conspiracy, it appears, marches on within, building happy citizens and cheerful patriots. |
|
