Winning at all costs?

The spirit of the Olympic Games has always been clear: “The important thing is not winning but taking part”. In recent times, however, the desire to win has been taken to extremes.

Peoples still remember the incident in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics when South African-born runner Zola Budd appeared to trip her rival and medal favourite, Mary Decker in the 5,000 metres, causing her to fall and lose the race. Nor can the international sporting public forget the shame brought to the Olympic ideal by Canadian Ben Johnson’s use of steroids in the 100 metre final in the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

Athletics is not the only sporting event in which competitors cheat. Weightlifting, football, boxing and even women’s shotputting have all attracted their fair share of scandal. During the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer in 1994, the world of competitive ice skating was shocked by an incident involving two American figure skaters, Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan, the favourite to win a medal. While training in Detroit, Nancy was mysteriously attacked on the knees by a man with an iron bar. Tonya was accused of conspiring with her ex-husband and her former bodyguard to injure Nancy.

Tonya eventually confessed to her involvement in the crime and has since seen her skating career destroyed. Although she escaped a prison sentence, she has paid a high price for her part in the scandal. She was fine $100,000 and given 500 hours of community service. She was also made to resign from the US Figure Skating Association. However, she has already earned $600,000 by giving an exclusive television interview and has been offered two million dollars to move to Tokyo to become a wrestler.

For Tonya Harding, fame and fortune have finally been achieved but at what cost?

6.1 Listen to the text “Winning At All Costs?”

6.2. Answer the questions to the text.

1. Does the spirit of the Olympic Games differ from other competitions’ one? 2. The desire to win has been taken to extremes lately, hasn’t it? 3. What incident occurred between Zola Budd and Mary Decker in the 5 000 meters race in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics? 6. What shame did Ben Johnson bring to the Olympic ideal in the 100 metre final in the 1988 Seoul Olympics? 7. What crime was Tonya Harding accused during the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer in 1994? 9. Do you think if her career was destroyed or not? 10. Is it good to win at all cost?

6.3. Discuss the text in class.

6.4. Dramatize the plot of the text.

6.5. Retell the text.

VII. Text II.

Games and money

The classic images of sports have traditionally been conjured up by the mind automatically, as each year progresses through its seasons:

Springtime and summer are baseball: the collision of bat striking ball; the hitter charging out of the batter's box, legs churning toward first bases; the flight of the fielder, pursuing the ball across the rich, green outfield grass.

Fall is football: that tense instant at the line before the ball is snapped; the crashing together of giant men clad in plastic armor; the receiver streaking down the sideline, lunging through the air to catch the brown, oblong projectile, fired by the quarterback.

Winter has basketball: elongated bodies, suspended high in midair while slamming the ball through the basket. And hockey: the explosion of a puck, rocketed by the mere flick of a wrist from the blueline, skipping at 100 miles an hour over the ice.

That's what sport is. Or, more accurately, that's what sport was until recently.

Welcome to the modern world of sports. Those scenes remain; the games themselves have not changed so much. But we the fans are barraged by other images, fed to us daily by our morning paper and evening sports report on television.

That baseball player is attending the winter meetings with his agent, fielding not fly balls but the highest offers for his services. That football player is in court, forcing his league to grant him the freedom to bargain as a free agent, doing his best to join the baseball player in the millionaire's club. The basketball player is trying to get his league to give up some percentage of what comes from luxury seating in the stadiums; the hockey player wants a little of that revenue generated by trading cards.

How did this happen? When did the world of our favorite games become the world of big business? The pace may have sped up in recent years, and the stakes increased, but sports was always business, right from the start.

7.1. Listen to the text “Games and Money”.

7.2. Read and translate the text.

7.3. Make up ten questions of all types to the text.

7.4. Dramatize the plot of the text.

7.5. Discuss the text in class.

7.6. Give a talk on “Games and Money” in class.

VIII. Text III.