IN a matter of days, the world - or at least most households - will be divided as the grumps, who neither like nor understand the glories of sport, set out to make life difficult for us harmless obsessives anxious to savour every minute - hell, every second - of the drama, grace, courage and daring of the Olympic Games. Only the music of Beethoven, Schubert or Mozart, the vulnerable beauty of a horse at full gallop or that weary old battlefield known as love inspire more tears and excitement than sport.
But the Olympics remain special, mysterious, capable of creating lasting pictures. Seb Coe, Irena Szewinska, Lasse Viren, Nadia Comaneci, Abebe Bikila, Ed Moses, Carl Lewis, Said Aouita, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Olga Korbut, Alberto Juantorena, Paul Ereng, Carlos Lopes and John Treacy in the Los Angeles marathon, Kevin Young and so many more. It offers the ultimate prize, a gold medal and a specialist form of immortality.
For all the underling politic, Warped nationalism, commercialism and exploitation, as well as the sneaky, dark shame of performance-enhancing drugs, the Olympic Games - and sport itself - still manages to rise above its own shortcomings. It is the definitive celebration. The victors and the vanquished; the emerging stars and the defeated champions are heroes. Higher, faster, stronger - the best in the world.
Mexico in 1968 was my initiation and those Olympics had a far greater impact on my childhood than the Moon landing the following year. True, as Bob Beaman leapt into the rarefied air high over Mexico City it did seem to me that he was bound for outer space anyway. Like a startled rabbit he shot into the atmosphere and landed, a massive 8.90 metres or 29 feet, two-and-a-half inches into the sand of the long jump pit. I saw my elder brother gasp and/or possibly cry.
The defending champion, Welshman Lynn Davies, looked shocked and asked rhetorically show can one go on when your event has been blown apart?" or words to that effect. Davies, Ralph Boston and the Russian Igor Ter-Ovanesyan - the three Tokyo medallists stood at the long-jump pit like mourners at a funeral. Theatre. I thought it was great. (The record, bettered by Mike Powell in 1991, not Carl Lewis. stood for 23 years.) It was also interesting discovering that grown-ups also ran and jumped and were had losers. Except they seemed to cry even when they won.
But there was so much more. US sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos stood on the victory podium for the men's 200 metres, black-gloved fists clenched high above their heads celebrating Black Power. and were later sent home in disgrace. Another black American, Wyomia Tyus, who was defending champion, retained her 100 metres crown - and stood crying in the rain.
Britain's dignified and gracious David Hemery, who epitomised what we thought British royalty must be like - years were to pass before we were to learn that royalty act a lot differently - charged away with the 400-metre hurdles and a world record.
Aside from the Black Power and the riots in Mexico City, there was the altitude. Ron Clarke, the great Australian distance runner was quoted as saying there will be those of us who will die". Fairly dramatic - death as well as tears and tantrums. The child's mind conjured up images of dead athletes lying on the ground. Beaten by the altitude, the great Clarke only finished fifth in the 5,000 metres.
Mexico marked the emergence of the brilliant Kenyan runners. A picture remains in my mind of Clarke lying on a stretcher with an oxygen mask strapped to his face. One of the greatest athletes of all time, a multi-world record, yet never an Olympic champion. It was an image far more vividly human than the first Moon walk. After all, any kid growing up in California expected stuff like men wearing padded suits and glass-fronted helmets on their heads to be stumbling about on the Moon.
I also remember Dick Fosbury and his eccentric, pioneering, backwards-shoulders-first flop over the high jump bar. Favourite for the 400 metres, British athlete Lillian Board was caught at the tape by a French woman, Colette Besson, wearing a blue vest, her long dark hair flying in the wind behind her. They both cried.
Lots of people cried over the failure of Californian wonder swimmer Mark Spitz. Four years later, though, he was to make history, winning seven gold medals in Munich. Lillian Board didn't get a second Olympic chance. Just over two years after that 400 metres final, stomach cancer killed her.
While the sprinters and jumpers smashed world records - black American Lee Evans blasted his way to the men's 400 metres gold with an aggression more suited to the boxing ring - endurance athletes suffered. World mile record holder Jim Ryun was defeated in the 1,500 metres by Kip Keino and Mexico's altitude. In Munich, the unthinkable happened again when he tripped in his 1,500 metres heat, again denied a title which seemed to be his by divine right. Yet Ryun remains a hero.
As the Russians invaded her country, the lovely, motherly Czech gymnast Vera Caslavska, blonde hair piled on top of her head, won four gold medals in Mexico, adding to her three from Tokyo.
Within four years gymnastics would be taken over by little girls. Although I 7, Russia's Olga Korbut was like an elf and won two individual gold medals, while her team-mate, the stately, more womanly Ludmila Tourischeva, with the solemn face of a ballerina, took the overall title.
The 1972 Olympics also taught us that sprinting was not confined to black Americans. The crisp, efficient Russian Valeriy Borsov won both the 100 and 200 metres ahead of Americas. Renate Stecher of East Germany powered to victory in the women's sprints. A pretty 16-year-old West German Ulrike Meyfarth won the women's high jump. Twelve years and three Olympics later she returned from oblivion and regained the high jump title at Los Angeles.
Munich also provided the setting for the first Olympic raid by the frail-looking Finn Lasse Viren who won the 10,000 metres, later adding the 5,000 metres. He amazed. Equally unexpected was the sight of his countryman Pekka Vasala defeating the great Kip Keino in the 1,500 metres.
Belfast's Mary Peters, after a strong first day with superb shot and high jump performances, suddenly seemed capable of winning the then pentathlon from Heide Rosendahl, West Germany's outstanding all rounder and Olympic long jump champion. It all rested on the final event, the 200 metres. Rosendahl was a world class sprinter. Peters was not. The German girl wearing her famous stripped socks produced a magnificent 22.9 Peters, in agony, far slower, nonetheless ran the race of her life. When the scores of the individual events were totted. Peters won by 10 points.
In the pool, Australian Shane Gould was equally irreverent, beating American swimmers. Munich also saw East German Roland Matthes repeat his backstroke sprint double. Rick de Mont, at 16 won the men's 1,500 metres freestyle in a world record. But as an asthmatic he was on medication and was disqualified for failing a drug test. His name is not in the record books, nor is his record. But we saw the race and his story is all the sadder considering the number of athletes who took performance-enhancing drugs and escaped detection.
The Munich Games were, however, overshadowed by the tragic massacre of the 11 Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists.
OVER 20 African countries boycotted the Montreal Olympics in 1976, protesting against New Zealand's rugby tour of South Africa.
Lasse Viren, last seen in Munich, reappeared and repeated his astonishing double and came fifth in the marathon - his first one, as well. Cool and impassive, black American Ed Moses won the 400 metres hurdles in a new world record.
Competing in her fourth Olympics, Poland's gracious Irena Szewinska, who always had a slightly preoccupied, "did I remember to put my shoes on?" expression, won the 400 metres in a world record to add to the 200 metres gold she had won eight years earlier in Mexico. Possibly the greatest female athlete of all time, she encapsulates the lost idealism of a sport now at the mercy of money.
Smiling, pleasant Alberto Juantorena from Cuba, with only four 800 metres races behind him, arrived a novice in Montreal and took the 800 metres gold in a world record. He also won the 400 metres. American John Naber ended the backstroke reign of Roland Matthes but another East German star emerged as Kornelia Ender won four gold medals.
Gymnastics was dominated by 14-year-old Romanian Nadia Comaneci and Russia's Nelli Kim.
Imagine a mountain moving at speed. It did Trinidad's massive sprinter Hasely Crawford took the 100 metres ahead of Jamaica's Don Quarrie and Borsov. With the exception of West Germany's Annegret Richter in the 100 metres, every gold medal in women's athletics was won by Eastern European athletes - East Germany even won both relays.
Despite the US boycott of the Moscow Games in 1980. the result of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, many fine athletes competed. Ethiopian Miruts Yifter won both the 5,000 metres and the 10,000 metres. Marita Koch of East Germany won the women's 400 metres and Italy's Sara Simeoni's high victory was almost operatic.
The only other non-Eastern European female athletics gold medalist was the Cuban javelin thrower Maria Caridad-Colon. It was the first of Daley Thompson's decathlon triumphs. The Scot, Allan Wells won the 100 metres though he was never to dominate in the way Linford Christie has. The big question of Moscow was "Coe or Ovett?" Most other things were a side show. The hype had been helped not only by their superb performances, but by the fact that they had not raced since the 1978 European 800 metres final. Two men from the same country and utterly different in every way. Fragile, elegant Coe had broken four world records in 41 days during the 1979 season and elevated middle distance running to the main evening news. Ovett the racer; more robust, the natural miler and master tactician, clearly unafraid of barging his way through the pack.
The 800 metres came first and Coe ran at the back of the field. With 200 metres to go he began moving up towards the front. But he never caught Ovett and his silver was dismissed as failure. The British press hounded their hero and Coe's dad told his boy "you ran like an idiot". Five days later Coe won the 1,500 metres final with Ovett finishing third.
The 1980 Games saw the arrival of aloof Jamaican sprinter Merlene Ottey. Unlikely to be troubled by Atlanta's humidity, 1996 will be her fifth Olympics. As ever, she is a contender.
The LA Games were boycotted by the Soviet Union and many of its allies, allegedly on security grounds. Many feared that the Games would prove too heady a mix of Hollywood and Disneyland, and when those 84 pianos appeared I became nervous. It was also the Games which heralded the arrival of a silent form of alternative comedy known as synchronised swimming; all arched feet and nose clips.
His reign interrupted by the Moscow boycott, King Edwin Moses reclaimed his crown. Daley Thompson kept his, and his grin became an unofficial Olympic logo. Evelyn Ashford's 100 metres victory in 10.97 was a quality performance regardless of the absentees, while Valerie Brisco-Hooks achieved the 200 metres and 400 metres double Michael Johnson is aiming for in Atlanta.
Carl Lewis began imposing his talent and opinions, while Ireland watched John Treacy secure a silver medal in the marathon behind the great Carlos Lopes. Mary Decker and Zola Budd collided and Decker looked as if she wanted the world to stop.
Minutes later, the men's 1,500 metres final saw Coe back from a blood disorder. an out-of-form Ovett, and Cram was now the threat. For a few metres the trio ran together going into the back straight for the last lap. Ovett dropped out. Coe looked across at Spain's Jose Abascal and set off pursued by Cram. As Coe sprinted to the tape, Cram faltered despairingly. Almost six seconds faster than Moscow, Coe's second Olympic 1,500 metres was about vindication.
The tragedy of Seoul is that the indelible image is of Ben Johnson's drug-propelled 9.79 charge to 100 metres gold only to be dishonoured the following day. Pole vaulter Sergei Bubka took the title with his only valid attempt. East German swimmer Kristin Otto won six gold medals, while American Matt Biondi won five.
The African domination of middle and long distance resumed. The best track performance in Barcelona was Kevin Young's world record-breaking 400 metres hurdles, while Carl Lewis took his third long jump title.
ATHLETES have got meaner looking, more menacing, they compete longer and the Grand Prix circuit has assisted the penchant for scanty gear with even the men favouring leotards.
The Olympic Games are part of history. It is more difficult to find heroes among the highly paid professional athletes of today. But while the romance and purity are gone, the drama and daring remain. Although there are now 28 sports in the Olympics, track and field enjoys premiere position.
Olympic competition brings together the varying best of all countries: good, very good and the great. Most of the athletes are world class. Tainted and corrupt, the 100-year-old Olympic idea struggles on, still a celebration, however flawed, of sport's finest hour.
