06:40 pm
Controlympics: Russia’s Bad Karma
Today, an underdog Georgian team (well, technically a pair of Brazilians playing for Georgia) defeated a Russian team in women’s beach volleyball. It’s a terrifically symbolic victory, but let’s not overplay it.
The Russians and Georgians have a long way to go before the events of these games can be compared to one of the most famous contests in Olympic history: the “blood in the water” water polo match at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. Six weeks after Red Army forces had invaded Hungary and crushed the Hungarian Revolution, Hungary defeated the Soviet Union 4-0 in the semifinals. From Wikipedia:
[M]any of the players saw the Olympics as a way to salvage some pride for their country. “We felt we were playing not just for ourselves but for our whole country” said Zádor after the match. The “Blood In The Water” match was played out in front of a partisan crowd bolstered with expatriate Hungarians. . . In the morning before the start, the Hungarians had evolved a strategy to taunt the Russians, whose language they had been forced to study in school. In the words of Zádor: “We had decided to try and make the Russians angry to distract them.”
. . .Going into the final minutes of the game, when Hungary was leading 4–0, Zádor was marking Valentin Prokopov, with whom he had several verbal exchanges, abusing his family, etc. At one point when Zádor looked away, Prokopov hit him with a powerful fist, causing a deep bleeding gash above the right eye. Zádor was forced to leave the pool, and his bleeding face was the final straw for a crowd which was already in a frenzy. Many angry spectators jumped on to the concourse beside the water, shook their fists, shouted abuse and spat at the Russians. To avoid a riot breaking out, police entered the arena with one minute to go and shepherded the crowd away. . . .
Hungary was declared [the] winner since they had been leading at the time, and they went on to beat Yugoslavia 2–1 in the final and win their fourth Olympic gold medal. Following the Olympics, half of the 100-member Hungarian Olympic delegation defected.
To place the event in context, this game is to the Hungarians what the 1980 U.S victory over the Soviet Union in hockey is to Americans — if, that is, the 1980 Olympics had taken place after the Soviet Union had invaded and crushed the United States.
In contrast, the Georgian and Russian volleyball teams embraced before their match. Something similar happened after a Georgian won the gold and a Russian silver in a pistol category earlier this week. Hugs, not fists, has to date been the rule this time around.
What I do find interesting, as Passport has noted, is that the Russians are having a miserable Olympics. A once-dominant force in international sports, they have won few medals and even fewer gold. Here’s a fact that must be driving Putin and Medvedev nuts: Georgia and Russia have won the same number of gold medals (two). Sounds like bad karma to me.
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