By Mike Davis

BN Columnist

Howdy neighbor!

It’s that time again; America’s best athletes have once more voyaged far beyond seas to compete upon the international stage in behalf of our country, striving in honorable contest against the rival nations of the world to bring home the golden medallions and laurel crowns of the grand Olympic ceremonies now being held in Paris. The noble sacrifices of these athletes, made in behalf of our nation, are commendable in the extreme; each dedicating years of their lives and enduring considerable sufferings and expense made in the course of improving themselves sufficient to win mastery in their chosen field, only to then set their skills to public trial against the best athletes of the world.

To do this for any reason is commendable enough; but to do it selflessly, to rise in service to the honor of their homeland, and without pay or other state inducements, makes of each champion a fit example of sportsmanship, rectitude and patriotism whose virtues our aspiring youth would do well to emulate, and of which all our citizens should be truly proud. At time of this writing, they’ve already earned many prizes to our name, chiefly 12 medals — more than any other nation as yet this year — and among them three Golds. Certainly, by the end of the week when we go to print, we should expect far more to have been added to this count, increasing upon the grand total of almost three thousand medals won by United States athletes since our participation in the very first modern Olympic Games in 1896. Missing only one Olympics from in all that time — disdaining to make our appearance at the 1980 Soviet games when we led a coalition of 66 nations in protest against their attempt to expand communism in the Middle East — the United States has since earned the distinction of winning the most medals of any nation to compete, and regularly leads the field each year the games are held despite being one of only three countries whose teams are not in any way state-sponsored. We must always remember that our athletes come from every walk of life, and are homegrown American heroes standing on their own merits. They are not as the champions of so many other nations, paid state-actors trained from infancy solely for the job of winning medals. That our athletes are independent champions is a particular point of pride, and more so when we consider just how often, indeed how regularly, these free agents beat out their carefully curated opponents.

Our team has done very well since 1896, and at the risk of sounding over-bold, I expect we shall continue to do the same this year. But given that we like to reflect on our history and traditions here at the News, and especially in this column, I thought it would be a fine thing to look back on the first modern Olympic Games, which reopened after a lapse of only a couple millennia in Athens, Greece on April 6, 1896. These were of course the first Olympic Games to be held in over fifteen hundred years, the games having first begun in the time of Ancient Greece, starting in 776 BC and ending under Roman rule in the reign of the Emperor Theodosius around 393 AD. But given that the archives of The Bridgton News don’t go back quite that far, and since I’m particularly interested in American history over the Classics of my old Academy days, I wanted to give our readers a brief account of the first modern Olympics from the files of the News dating to May 8, 1896. This was an era when there were only nine sports on trial, as opposed to the present 32, and perhaps chief amongst them was the race of Marathon, so named after that legendary run made in the year 490 BC by the Athenian youth Pheidippides, who raced unceasing from the battlefield on the plains of Marathon over 26 miles home to Athens to announce their victory over the Persians. This the boy did without fail, without pausing to take a breath or drink of water from the urgency of his report, and having so exerted himself with the strain of bearing his message, he said by the historian Lucian to have died on the spot immediately after relating the message: ‘Joy to you, we've won.’ Now I must confess to never having run a marathon, nor do I think it would be wise to try — I’ll stick to by golf and fishing thank you — but having run several miles before in track and field, and knowing many others who have attempted modern marathons in the past, it is certainly one of the most taxing feats of individual athleticism currently practiced by civilized societies.

In 1896, at the first Games, Greece was very desirous to take home the gold, especially after their perceived national shame suffered when Robert Garett took home the Gold for America in both Discus and Shotput, in which the Greeks were fully expected to prevail. When the time came to run the fabled marathon, the very best of the Greeks lined up to do it – and what do you know, a Greek boy did take home the gold that day, and in the true spirit of amateur competition, far from any trained athlete or prince’s son, their Marathon winner was himself a mere peasant water-carrier in the very mold of his ancient predecessor Pheidippides. I give you now the story, as told here in the News of May 8, 1896. Enjoy!

“A Long Distance Run. The closing days of the athletic contests at Athens show some interesting records. It is proved for one thing that Americans or the nations of western Europe are not to be mentioned in a long-distance dunning match with the Greeks, although Americans can beat the Greeks in jumping and discus throwing and in a short sprint. The long-distance run was laid out over the ground traversed by the runner who announced in Athens, 2386 years ago, that the Greeks had defeated the Persians on the plain of Marathon. The distance from Marathon to Athens is rather more than 26 miles. Our American young men, always brave, entered for this 26-mile run along with the Greeks. But they were nowhere; it is remarkable that the winners of all three prizes in the run from Marathon were Greeks. It probably shows that among the Greeks are the swiftest foot travelers in the world, unless perhaps some of the South American Indians are fleeter. It is remarkable, too, that the Greek who made the distance in two and three-quarter hours and got the first prize was a common peasant named Louis. The figures show that he ran almost nine and one-half miles an hour.”

Till next time!