Peter Dascoulias

As a kid I loved to ski. I can remember the feeling of gliding down an untracked hill in a cow pasture in Northfield. I remember how soft and smooth the snow felt under my feet. I remember how pristine it appeared as it covered the slope of the meadow; how the sun sparkled on the jewel-like flakes of the surface; and how fresh the air was with its invigorating coolness. I loved it.

My first pair of skis was given to me by an elderly woman who was cleaning out her cellar on Vine Street in Northfield. I don’t remember if I just happened to be going by, or what. But, I had the good fortune of being the recipient of the skis. They were very old, the kind with the square point at the tip, a black piece of ribbed rubber where your foot was supposed to sit, and a leather strap that went over the toe to hold them on. I would line them up at the top of the hill, stand on them, glide to the bottom (with some luck), take them off, carry them up the hill, and do it all over again.

To help me out, my dad made me some ski poles out of broomsticks. He cut them to the right height, cut out octagonal pieces of wood to serve as baskets, attached them with rawhide, and ran rawhide through holes which he’d drilled at the top to serve as straps.

I can remember sitting with my dad watching the first real television coverage of the Winter Olympics in Innsbruck in 1964. I was fourteen. I remember him saying to me, probably not unlike many dads, “Maybe someday you can ski in the Olympics.” Twelve years later I did, after having competed for several years throughout Europe, and in the World Biathlon (cross-country skiing and shooting) Championships in Russia in 1974 and Italy in 1975.

On a frigid winter day in Lake Placid, New York, site of the 1932 and 1980 Olympics, I won the US National 20 kilometer Biathlon Championship and secured a spot on the 1976 US Olympic Team that competed in Innsbruck, Austria. It was an incredible experience. Did I win a medal? No. Did it make the experience any less valuable? No, because for a long time the Olympic Movement has, like no other, united athletes and nations of the world in peaceful celebration and competition. I was there to do my best at representing my country in a celebration of peaceful international competition.

It seems, especially these days, the worth of Olympic athletes is determined by the medals that they’ve won. If you don’t believe it just look at Michelle Kwan, Bode Miller and Apolo Anton Ohno. Shortly after all of them failed to produce the expected medals this past week, Fox News aired a program about Olympic favorites fizzling and whether corporate sponsors “blew it” by endorsing these athletes ahead of the games. “Execs” at Coke seem to think that they blew it since almost immediately after Kwan dropped out of the women’s figure skating due to a serious groin strain they dropped their endorsement contract with her.

We’ve got a medals mean all mentality. It’s actually been that way for some time in the United States. The whole medal “thing” began years ago as TV coverage of the Olympics started to pick up. With the Cold War raging, it appeared that a good way to generate interest in the games, and TV network coverage of them, was to compare the medals that United States athletes won with medals that Soviet athletes won; thus, the medal count.

What most folks didn’t know, and still don’t, is that the United States sends far more athletes to the “Games” than any other country. Countries that compete in the games like Belgium, Spain, Latvia, South Korea, Taiwan, and Italy don’t send nearly the number of athletes that we do. When we send 300 to 500 athletes to the Olympics and other countries send 30 or 100, it’s no wonder we normally win more medals than anyone else. How could it be otherwise? Back in the days of the Cold War, the USSR may have sent close to the number of athletes that we did. But, those days are long gone. So, why the networks continue to drag on with the medal count reflects the fact that 1.) they believe their public is uninformed and 2.) they like to make a big deal out of inconsequential issues.

The fact is that we’re misled by the media. We’re lead to believe that winning medals is commonplace. It is not. The majority of athletes competing don’t win medals, or even come close to being on the podium. Medal competition may make for good TV coverage, but it overlooks the bigger picture.

Baron Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the Modern Winter Olympic Movement espoused a philosophy combining balanced whole qualities of body, will, and mind. Blending sports with culture, the Olympic spirit seeks to create a way of life based on effort, the education value of good example (which we’ve lost in professional sport) and respect for fundamental ethical principles.

In Baron de Coubertin’s mind the goal of the Olympic competition was to place everywhere sport at the harmonious development of mankind. Sport, especially Olympic sport, does a lot more than produce winners. It produces individuals of character, individuals that know how to face opposition head on and put forth a fair and strong fight, a valuable skill to carry with you in the game of life.

This quote from de Coubertin sums it up: “The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win, but to take part; just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph, but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered, but to have fought well.”

The Olympics are not all about the medals.