Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Snatching Victory

My last post, about the Olympics, was a bit cheeky.  HereÕs another angle on the events.  Read it slow, it has to last through sunday - we’re leaving tomorrow morning for a visit with my folks in LA, to help Connie shore up a bit of strength for a herculean effort of a non-athletic kind.  Wish her luck, and us too - 16 hours in a small car with a one-year-old will be a trial.  But in the olympic spirit, I think it’ll all be okay.

There was a time I lived in utopia, and it was the summer of 1984.  I didnÕt have a girlfriend, a job worth talking about, or a place of my own, but I could hardly complain: it was Los Angeles, the Olympic City, and the place had been cleaned up like never before.  Employers had staggered their business hours so traffic flowed more smoothly than ever, and the infamous rush hour logjams evaporated.  An adequate public transportation system was imposed, and people actually used it.  Banners, flags and festive posters appeared on streets and buildings everywhere.  People were friendly and helpful all of a sudden and the city was awash with first-rate art and performances from all around the world Š I saw about ten of those events that summer, if not more.  (StockhausenÕs suite on the solar system, simultaneously performed on five different stages in a big park, was a noteworthy example.) The weather was great and there was hardly any smog.  Plus, there was the Olympics. 

I know I saw more than 20 athletic events that summer, from velodrome cycling to soccer to track and field to gymnastics to basketball and a bunch of other stuff I can fain recall these 20 and more years hence.  In particular, I recall going to the basketball venue with my cousin, three months older than me by the calendar but generally a decade or so ahead of me behaviorally.  We watched one game of a double header, and then during the 20-minute break he offered me a chew of tobacco.  IÕd never tried it, but I took a pinch atween my cheek and gum anyway and let it work its magic.  By the time the next game started I couldnÕt stand up for the anthems.  My head spun and my stomach was fomenting a most unpleasant revolt.  I had to conclude that none of the five Olympic rings were left by a Skoal can in anybodyÕs back pocket.  IÕve never chewed again. 

Anyway, with all the urban and civic improvements, and all the incredible demonstrations of creative energy, and the amazing athletic endeavors, and even the face-numbing, body-wrenching introduction to oral tobacco usage, the one thing that still really sticks in my mind was the weightlifting.  No, really. 

Our weightlifting tickets were not among my most prized.  I loved the bike racing at the new velodrome, respected the track and field events at the magnificent Coliseum, appreciated the spectacle of international soccer at the Rose Bowl (we saw Yugoslavia and waved little Yugoslav flags, bellowing Yu! Go!  Slav-i-a!), but weightlifting was not of any interest to me.  It was something my dad did in the garage that caused him to make terrible noises and me to avoid the vicinity when he was there.  It was undramatic, flashless, and crude.  There were no head-to-head competitions.  And the venue, a small college down by the ocean, was of no interest to me.  In short, who cared. 

And Ņin shortÓ was the operative phrase, since our tickets were for the lightweight class Š bantam, or flyweight, or waif, or something.  The little guys.  If I didnÕt even care about the big guys, I was actively apathetic about the little ones.  But we had the tickets and I wasnÕt going to miss the pageantry, even of a dorkball event like this, with its embarrassing nomenclature like snatch, clean-and-jerk, and prolapse hoist.  So when the time came, I went.  And it was a very wise decision.

One at a time, these human fireplugs, all shorter than I was, would step up to the podium and confront a metal bar loaded with so much iron that it made the floor bend.  TheyÕd slap chalk on their hands and their singlets and on the cordwood they used as thighs, and then the room seemed to shrink down around them.  Their concentration was so intense that we all synched up, breathing as one, the whole crowd locked in on a single goal Š overcoming gravity.  Since we all keyed in on just one man at a time, all the details that would have been lost in a crowd were clearly illuminated under the spotlight.  As individual athletes stood one at a time to make their weights, subtle differences emerged in technique and style, as well as larger differences in personality.  Some were stoic; some were nervous; and some were on an altogether different plane of reality than the rest of us.  Each, though, was very much an individual.  And their diminutive stature was the last consideration on our minds, from the first lift of the first bar. 

There was the thoughtful matter of personal arrangement, placing the feet and hands just so, arching the back, setting the neck.  Then theyÕd unleash their strength, muscles bunched and bulging, every sinew straining against an obstacle our species was never meant to overcome.  Then, suddenly, the bounds of gravity would snap, and the huge barbell flew into the air.  ThatÕs when individual style and true mastery took over.  Could he stop the damn thing from tipping over backwards?  Could he hold it in place?  Could his legs stop shivering long enough to get credit for the lift?  Could he create a moment of perfect harmony between power, momentum, and inertia? 

After each failed attempt, the man on the dais was crestfallen and his enormous shoulders slumped with shame.  Every person in the darkened theater knew what it meant, what it felt like (though without the hundreds of pounds of weight and public exposure and nationalistic disappointment), and we sighed his sorrow with him. 

But successful lifts were ecstatic, in a way IÕd never known ecstasy and never, on my own, could.  TheyÕd stand there with a billion pounds of steel balanced in their two little hands over their fragile brainpans, teetering on the fragile platform of their two small human feet so far below them, and then let it all go, the huge barbell plummeting like an elevator cut loose in a shaft, slamming so hard into the stage that it bounced several times in a way IÕd never seen steel bounce before.  Their muscles went instantly from a clenched mass of rock to elated flexibility, and the air in the venue brightened with their triumph. 

When Guoqiang Zeng of China lifted 235 kilograms to win the gold, his national origin was a matter of the utmost irrelevance to us as we cheered him.  I can remember clearly his face wreathed in smiles, and his enormous barrel chest bursting with pride at his accomplishment.  HeÕd lifted nearly five times his body weight, in a strange foreign land, in a competition with the best and strongest little men in the world.  But it seemed that his real triumph was over the inanimate disks of iron, rather than over the other men against whom heÕd struggled.  He had done the impossible, on cue.  His elation still shines within me, and reminds me that, no matter how heavy the weight I face, if I concentrate and take my time, I have a decent shot of lifting it. 

Just so long as itÕs not a real weight, of course.  My little lesson of personal strength was matched by the spectacle of superhuman physicality each of the competitors represented.  And that was another lesson Š those little guys can pack one hell of a punch.  This is a lesson that takes on more resonance every day I spend with my new son.  IÕm looking forward to taking him to the games some day and letting him learn a few Olympic lessons of his own.