The final ISOH Journal for 2017 offers a glance at the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang. In view of the tense political climate between North and South Korea, additionally heated by muscle flexing of the US President, today no one can say with certainty whether these Games will take place peacefully. The hope, that in the end common sense will prevail, is based on the experiences of Seoul 1988. In the end those Games were able to take place undisturbed after two boycotts; also, the pre-history was similarly complicated.
The current Doyen of the IOC, Richard W. Pound, described in his 1994 book, Five rings over Korea, the tough struggle of the two Korean NOCs over the common holding of the Games. We learn why the project failed from his eleventh chapter, kindly reproduced with his permission.
An independent Korean team with three speed skaters took part for the first time in 1948 in St. Moritz. But Sohn Kee Chung and Nam Sung Yong, who won gold and bronze in the marathon race in Berlin 1936, were also Koreans. However, they had to run under the Japanese flag.
How important this fact is for Korean identity became quite clear when Sohn, four decades later, became aware of the existence of an antique helmet which a Greek publisher had donated not only for him, as he thought, but for all marathon winners. More on that in “The fight for the warrior’s helmet”.
On the 24th October the Olympic flame was lit in Ancient Olympia. A tradition that did not begin for Winter Games until 1964. As at that time there was no torch relay, only a single torch was needed to light the cauldron at the Bergisel Stadium. As the Austrian historian Gerhard Siegl found out, more examples were made, to which some replicas were later added. Attention, hunters and collectors! But the article will also be of interest to everyone else.
The TV publicist Michael Dittrich has taken up a tragic story. It is about the German fencer Matthias Behr. At the 1982 World Championships his foil blade broke, which led to the death of the Soviet Olympic champion Vladimir Smirnov. For years Behr had unsuccessfully tried to contact Smirnov’s widow. After 35 years at last came the reconciliation – with support from ISOH. What else can be expected? Jan Luitzen tells the story of the Dutch boxer Regilio Tuur, who caused a sensation in 1988 when he knocked out the favourite for gold. James Goddard has written about Hiram E. Tutle, who was more than only “an American Horseman”.
“The Bolanachi Story” comes from Christan Wacker. It concerns a record holder who was a member of the IOC for 53 years – 22 in Egypt and 31 in Greece. And finally Myles Garcia. He continues to research Olympic cauldrons. This time he has taken on Rio 2016. The series about IOC Members has reached part 25. As usual this issue publishes Olympic news, reviews and obituaries, in which Olympic medallists are honoured.
– Volker Kluge, Editor
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