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NYAC OLYMPIC GLORY Lindy Remigino, gold medalist, 100m. Click here to see Remigino win the gold at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki. Horace Ashenfelter, gold medalist, 3000m steeplechase. Click here to see Ashenfelter win the gold at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki. Al Oerter, the first man to win the same event - the discus - in four consecutive Olympic Games, 1956 to 1968.  Click here to see Al Oerter win gold in 1964 Bruce Baumgaretner, four-time medalist in freestyle wrestling (two of them gold). Click here to see Baumgartner win the gold at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul.

The NYAC at the Olympic Games An unparalleled tradition On August 8th, 2008, the curtain will rise on the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, taking place in Beijing, China. If tradition is a yardstick - as it invariably is at the Olympics, tradition being its very core - these Games will be bigger, more extravagant, more expensive, more...everything than any Games that have come before. Some bare numbers offer affirmation: 302 events in 28 sports will be contested by 10,708 athletes at 37 competition venues; 5,600 written press and photographers will cover every move, while the host broadcaster will commission 12,000 staff to ensure that live coverage gets to all corners of the globe. The glue holding the whole thing together will be the 70,000 volunteers, a loose-knit army of enthusiasts who will endeavor to cope with what may be the largest ever foreign invasion of the Chinese mainland. All of which is a world removed from the modern Games’ humble beginnings, as high-flown as their aspirations may have been. In that f irst gathering, in Athens in 1896, 43 events were contested by approximately 245 competitors. Rowing and yachting were canceled due to bad weather, and one-handed weightlifting and the 100m freestyle for members of the Greek navy had only limited participation. Fourteen nations were represented (there will be over 200 in Beijing), and none of the athletes were women. Nonetheless, that the Athens Games should even come to pass was an astounding success, not to mention an example of remarkable hubris. That it endured and has developed to become a phenomenon defying definition is a testimony to planning, good fortune, political machination and vision. As the shape and scope of the modern Games have changed through the years, only a few tangible common themes have remained. One of those is the New York Athletic Club. In the early 1880s, the excavation of the site of the ancient Olympic Games at Olympia initiated a wave of interest in reviving the Games, a flame that was fanned by the now-feted Baron Pierre DeCoubertin in alliance with William Millington Sloane from Princeton a nd England’s Charles Herbert. But it was the NYAC and, across the pond, the London Athletic Club, Herbert’s affiliation, that were the global spor ting powerhouses and without whose support the Games may have faltered. Although the London AC, with Herbert’s encouragement, was an enthusiastic advocate of the new venture, the NYAC, whose influence guided a far broader range of sports, was more cautious. Nonetheless, Herbert initiated a correspondence that brought about the celebrated N YAC vs LAC track meet of 1895 (in which the NYAC scored a stunning upset), following which the Club’s Thomas Burke traveled to Athens one year later. He returned home with a silver medal (yes, silver), a laurel wreath and a diploma for his victories on the track in both the 100m and the 400m. Thus began an alliance between the NYAC and the Olympic Games that is unprecedented in the world of club competition. Con sider, for example, that following Burke’s win in the Athens 400m, NYAC runners also won that event in 1900 (Maxey Long), 1904 (Harry Hillman), 1906 (Paul Pilgrim at the Intercalated Games), 1912 (Charles Reidpath) and 1928 (Ray Barbuti). Though the standing jumps (long, high and triple) are no longer contested, that cannot undermine the accomplishments of Ray Ewry who, between 1900 and 1908 won 10 gold medals in that event. (Just for the heck of it, see if you can high jump 5’5” with no run-up, as Ewry did in 1900. Or long jump 11’4  7/8”, as he did in 1904). Al Oerter, as has been extensively documented, won consecutive gold medals in the discus throw in 1956, 1960, 1964 and 1968, a feat matched only by Carl Lewis in the long jump (1984, 1988, 1992 and 1996). All of which is to offer only the barest of glimpses into the NYAC’s entrenched involvement with the Olympic Games, an involvement that continues to this date. In Athens in 2004, 39 Club members took part, returning to the City House with 11 medals - five gold, two silver and four bronze. Current indicators are that the coming Games in Beijing will continue this trend. The Club’s rowers, water polo players, judokas, track and field competitors, fencers and wrestlers are all excelling, and all are aware that, with just a few months remaining, the time to take it up a notch is...now. In the coming months, the activities of our elite Olympic teams will be documented with increasing attention in The Winged Foot magazine and here at www.nyac.org. For additional Olympic information, visit the US Olympic Committee at www.usoc.org, the International Olympic Committee at www.olympic.org and the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee at en.beijing2008.cn. A trove of information can also be found at www.nbcsports.com/olympics. Superb video coverage of many Olympic Trials events featuring NYAC competitors can be found at www.wcsn.com. The Olympic flame will ignite on 8/8/08. For the 29th consecutive time, NYAC athletes will be in the arena, continuing a theme and embellishing a glorious tradition.                                                                         - James J. O'Brien (jamesob@nyac.org)