Some
Thoughts on the Virus, the Olympics, and History of Pandemic Problem Solving
Since
the March 17 initial lockdown and social distancing regulations went into
widespread effect, we’ve had time to try adapting to this new lifestyle and figuring
out how to manage our extra time and take care of ourselves and our loved ones
and even to think about others who are not so fortunate to have everything at
hand to make life manageable. As this
is a blog about Track and Field it is also relevant to wonder how high
performance athletes are managing their time and emotions and how they may be
looking at their futures.
It
would seem to be incredibly difficult to have trained for the past four years
getting ready for the Olympics this year only to see them postponed for another
year. How do you adjust your long term
goals and training? How do you maintain
a competitive edge when there is no head to head competition, no crowd to cheer
you on, no financial reward to help pay your rent, mortgage, or you next payment
on that Mercedes in the driveway? How do
you face getting up in the morning to go to train when there is nothing on your
schedule to put those training hours in to action? What do you do to get that rush from a short
performance event like polevaulting where all your timing, coordination, speed,
strength and courage go into a 4 or 5 second performance? Same for a sprinter or a high jumper. A thrower though often spurred on by his or
her fellow competitors might have it a bit easier imagining oneself in a
competition. The easiest event that can
be put into the current reality is most likely the middle distance and distance
runner who can just go out the front door and hit the roads. No worries about social distancing unless you
are a person who prefers running with partners through the forests or on the
roads. Sometimes an interval workout
can be helped a lot with a running partner pushing you along, but it can also
be an elevating event just doing it alone.
Personally, I’ve generally been a loner in my training. On occasion I have gone the route of meeting
and training with others, but I hated scheduling that or gluing down my day to
having to be in a certain place at a certain time to run.
All these factors must be taken into consideration by
high performance athletes. Will certain ones
thrive on this reality and others crumble?
Most likely. New ones may come
along who see this as a golden opportunity to move up the rankings once competitions
re-open. Already some sports are talking
about re-opening with limited or no spectators. Without big crowds we may have to go to pay per view to see live sports in the near
future. But we were doing that before
the virus disrupted our lives. The sports channels will probably start
sending out notices of events schedules
in the near future and telling us what we have to do to see them. Personally I’m tired watching ‘plays of the
decade’. Even though we reminisce in
this blog, the live stuff still gets my attention at least for a bit of
viewing.
For the sports starting up first, there will be new
rules of distancing. How close can you
sit on a bench next to your teammates? Will sprinters be in alternating lanes? Will baseball players be allowed to spit as they all seem to do? Smokeless tobacco was ruled out of the sport
a few years ago, but the habit of spitting doesn’t seem to have been affected. But, bad habits can be broken. Swarming a pitcher after a no hitter or a
batter after a walk off home run may no longer be considered the order of the
day. Stadium sellouts may become
one third of capacity. Two seats between
every spectator, maybe even less if you go to two empty rows between seated
spectators. Where then will the extra
revenue come from? Advertising and pay
per view of course. We might not even be
able to get results without ponying up some dough.
We are a fragile species, are we not? In seven weeks we’ve gone from a robust,
vibrant nation with a strong economy, to one of beggars asking for free food
and being given it as they wait patiently in their cars to keep the masses from
stealing and looting to feed themselves.
There are not enough policemen nor enough bullets to contain the masses
if they are hungry. And in the US those
masses would not just be hungry, they would be armed with automatic
weapons. So right now we are living on a
lot of trust and belief in the promises our politicians are spouting about a
cure in the near future, a testing process to help decide who should stay home
and who should return to their former lifestyle. We also live with a sense of responsibility and
caring for others that comes from somewhere other than a system based on greed
and selfishness.
Getting back to my original opening about training for an Olympics we don’t even
know will occur, my colleague Roy Mason
remarked, that we managed with cancellations in 1940 and 1944. Actually there was a cancellation in 1916 as
well. Those three were because of World
Wars. The 2020 cancellation is the first
that is not war related. I looked a bit
more closely into the 1920 Olympics held in Antwerp, because they were held
less than two years after the 1918-1919 pandemic. Belgium suffered invasion and occupation as
the Germans marched through their country to get at the French. They resisted and paid dearly, then had to
confront the Spanish influenza pandemic two years later. Yet nations, perhaps less informed about
pandemics and public health went head long into the Games. The Allied Forces in Europe in 1919 put on a big sporting event in Paris called the Inter-Allied Games, sort of a precursor to the Antwerp Olympics. We'll talk more about that event near the end of this piece.
The 1918-1919 pandemic came in three waves starting in
the Spring of 1918. No one knows the
exact numbers who died but estimates range from 50 to 100 million world
wide. Right now we are at 250,000 dead
with the 2020 pandemic. England in
1918-1919 had 225,000 dead, the US 675,000 dead, about 2% of their
populations. At the same time, India
had 18.5 million dead or 6% of their population.
The Black Death in the 14th century in
Europe took between 30% and 60% of the population. In the early 17th century, the
vibrant theater life in London was shut down because of plague. Shakespeare got sidelined in his heyday.
In recent times
the world AID’s pandemic took 35 million lives
The dreaded Ebola outbreak in Africa was only about
12, 000. Foreign nations fought hard to
keep it from coming to their shores. But
the Covid -19 seems to have caught us with our pants down.
Competition in sport seems not to have been as affected
then as now. You can see pictures of
major league baseball teams wearing face masks, but I doubt this was universal. The 1919 Stanley Cup in Hockey was deadlocked in matches 3-3 when it was cancelled out in Seattle (yes Seattle) when several members of the Montreal Canadians were stricken. One of them died. There was a lot of misinformation or no
information during 1918 because of WW I.
People were forbidden to write or talk much in public about it, because
the government didn’t want the Germans to know that the US population and especially
the military was full of sick people. Measures
to combat the flu were very local. Philadelphia
had a public health director, Wilmer Krusen, whodeclared that he would “confine this disease to its present limits, and in this we are sure to be successful. No fatalities have been recorded. No concern whatever is felt.” He rejected the
idea that the flu existed, then when it increased, pronounced that it was under
control. He allowed a war bond parade to
go ahead against medical advice as well as a St. Patricks Day parade. The city got hit hard, 200,000 sick, 12,000
dead in a ten day period. Public services
shut down and businesses closed for a lack of workers. Children were left to fend for themselves, with corpses in their homes and tenements. "Volunteers" could not be found to help them. Yet we all but forgot about these statistics
one hundred years later, because we thought our modern health care system could
manage such emergencies. Other cities
passed more stringent regulations in 1918. San
Francisco, only 12 years after the 1906 earthquake catastrophe, had a $5 fine
if you were caught not wearing a mask.
That was several days’ wages for
the average citizen. Chewing and
spitting tobacco was a common habit then.
An anti-spitting ordinance was imposed on the city by the bay. Boy Scouts passed out leaflets to spitters to
remind them of their transgressions.
By the Spring of 1919 the third wave of the pandemic
hit. It was not as bad as the second wave
because a large portion of the population had survived and developed immunity by then. Also the virus had mutated
and didn’t present such a serous threat.
Originally the virus affected the bronchial tubes going to the lungs,
weakening them and allowing bacterial infections to get down into the lungs
producing a pneumonia that was deadly.
After the mutation, the bronchioles were no longer affected even though
the virus could still infect the lungs in some cases and kill, most people
could resist because the undamaged bronchioles could stop the infection from
descending into the lungs.
The press was muzzled by the Sedition Act that Congress
passed to keep information carefully controlled. Again this was to keep the enemy from knowing
the levels of infection in the military.
The US Navy had a 40% infection rate and the Army had 36%. It was American and British POW’s who spread
the infection to the Germans. The
penalty for publicizing the disease or speaking in a manner contrary to the war
effort was a 20 year jail rap.
I can remember my mother speaking occasionally about those
days saying that they were sometimes quarantined as a family as several of the kids
came down with the flu. Her older sister Florence died from it a week before another sister was born. I had another great uncle
who was in the Army and died of the flu on his way to Europe. He was buried at sea. Yet these things were never mentioned as a
history of tragedy in my family. It was
over and done.
We have vaccines for the older strains of flu but
still average between 3,000 and 49,000 deaths every year in the US. We’ve well exceeded that number with about 65,000
in seven weeks this year. We could just
not come to grips with the situation and it got away from us. I’m not blaming anyone though there is a lot
of blaming going on.
One other interesting bit of information that I picked
up in this minimal research was that a therapy was strongly suggested by the
medical profession in 1918. Aspirin had been
discovered by Bayer in 1899 and patented.
The patent ran out in 1916 and so it was on the market and cheap. There being no vaccines, the medical
profession recommended taking aspirin up to 30 grams per day. Today
4 grams is considered the maximum dosage to take in one day. This high rate of intake for a patient caused hyperventilation and pulmonary edema speeding the way to death. So looking for miracle drugs without proper
investigation and experimenting was done then and today is not recommended
as a pathway to confront the virus.
Last little bit on the 1918-1919 pandemic.
The post war negotiations resulting in the Treaty of
Versailles went on in 1919. Woodrow
Wilson, the American president, went to Europe.
During the negotiations he became very incoherent. It was thought that he had had a stroke, but
later study of his symptoms indicated that he had gotten sick from the
third wave of the flu. His bargaining position
became moot. The French and the British
punished the Germans heavily in the treaty thus leading to very difficult
economic times in Germany in the 1920’s setting the stage for the Nazis to come
to power in the 1930s. Perhaps Wilson may have made a difference had he been healthy. We'll never be sure.
Young healthy men who had survived life in the trenches were no longer at risk of getting seriously ill if exposed to another flu virus. Life went on, the hard times were forgotten, perhaps they were never written about because of the censorship rules. This time will we remember?
The Inter-Allied Games
1919 Paris
By 1919 the Allied nations had a preliminary Olympics
called the Inter Allied Games. The
competitors were mainly the military men still stationed in Europe.
Wikipedia reports below:
The Inter-Allied Games was a one-off multi-sport event held from 22 June to 6 July 1919 at the newly constructed Pershing Stadium just outside Paris, France following the end of World War I. The host stadium had been built near the Bois de Vincennes by the U.S. Military in cooperation with the YMCA. The event was only open to participation by military personnel who were currently serving or had formerly served in the armed forces during the War. Around 1500 athletes from a total of eighteen nations participated in the proceedings which featured nineteen sports. Following the conclusion of the games, Pershing Stadium was presented as a gift to the people of France from the United States of America. The area, still known as Le Stade Pershing, continues to be used as an open air recreation park to this day.
Wikipedia reports below:
The Inter-Allied Games was a one-off multi-sport event held from 22 June to 6 July 1919 at the newly constructed Pershing Stadium just outside Paris, France following the end of World War I. The host stadium had been built near the Bois de Vincennes by the U.S. Military in cooperation with the YMCA. The event was only open to participation by military personnel who were currently serving or had formerly served in the armed forces during the War. Around 1500 athletes from a total of eighteen nations participated in the proceedings which featured nineteen sports. Following the conclusion of the games, Pershing Stadium was presented as a gift to the people of France from the United States of America. The area, still known as Le Stade Pershing, continues to be used as an open air recreation park to this day.
A total of nineteen sports were contested at the games. A number of military-oriented events was initially planned, but only hand-grenade throwing and shooting made it on to the final programme.
Participating nations
A total of twenty-eight nations from the Allies of World War I were invited to the competition and eighteen nations accepted the invite. China aimed to compete, but ultimately was unable to send any athletes to the games within the timescale. It did, however, provide medals and trophies in support of the games. The Kingdom of Hejaz sent a delegation but with no athletes, choosing to demonstrate the skills of their Arabian horsemen instead. A full list of participants was made by the organisers.
Gold medalists
 |
| Daniel Mason (NZL) and Earl Eby (USA) first and second in 800 meters. |
These American athletes competed in and won gold medals at the 1919 Inter-Allied Games:
- Ralph Parcaut - Gold Medal, Light Heavyweight Division, Catch as Catch Can Wrestling
- Paul Prehn - Gold Medal, Middleweight Division, Catch as Catch Can Wrestling
- Gene Tunney - Gold Medal, Boxing
- Max Friedman - Gold medal, Basketball
- Norman Ross - 5 Gold Medals, Swimming
- Carl F. Haas, William Clinton Gray, Floyd F. Campbell, and Lawrence M. Shields - Medley Relay Race
- United States of America, First Place, Rifle Shooting Team, Team Members include - Brigadier General Paul A. Wolf
The athletics competition at the Inter-Allied Games was held at the Stade Pershing from 22 June to 6 July 1919 in Paris, France. The event was open to all military personnel from countries that were among the Allies of World War I.[1]
The athletics competition consisted of 24 men's events, 20 of which counted towards the team scores. The standard international judging rules were applied, with field event results measured in metres, and the winner of the track event being timed by three judges separately. The 10-kilometre cross country running competition (not a medal event here) covered natural landscapes around the Joinville-le-Pont with a start and finishing point within the stadium. The reduced-distance 16,000 m marathon was organised similarly, except the extra-stadium course were the local streets in the area.[2]
The Americans, headed by team captain and Olympic medallist Richard Byrd and featuring a number of college-level athletes, clearly topped the points table with 92 compared to runner-up France with 12. Points were assigned on a by-event basis of one point for third, two points for second, and three points for first. The gathering marked a key development of the sport of track and field within France, as American personnel and YMCA sports coaches both coached and exhibited the various common American events at that time.[2]
The foremost track athletes at the games were Charley Paddock, who won a 100 metres/200 metres sprint double, and Robert Simpson, who completed a similar feat in the hurdles. Frenchman Jean Vermeulen won a long-distance running double by taking the cross country and modified marathon titles, despite having a crippled arm from the war. The 200 metres hurdles event was won by Simpson in a time just one fifth of a second short of the world record at that time, even though the athletes had the disadvantage of one of the hurdles being misplaced by a margin of two metres. The American's winning time of 1:30.8 in the 4×200 metres relay was declared a new world record at the time, but was later discovered to be inferior to a time run at the Penn Relays one month earlier.[2]
An unorthodox addition to the track and field events was the hand grenade throwing competition. This non-point-scoring event consisted of throwing for distance rather than accuracy and the winning distance of 245 feet and 11 inches, set by American military chaplain Fred Thomson, was declared a new world record. Two other non-point-scoring events were reserved for men who had served as part of an Army of Occupation during the war: a long jump contest and a 4×200 metres relay race. In that relay race the Italian team protested the victory, but a subsequent run-off resulted in the same outcome, with France first and Italy second. The hammer throw was absent from the programme, but two Americans—Pat Ryan and William McCormick—gave a demonstration of their speciality e
Men
- † The pentathlon consisted of the following five events: 200 metres, long jump, shot put, discus throw, and 1500 metres.[2]
Team points standing
Host nation (France)
| Rank | Nation | Winners | Runner-up | 3rd-placers | Points total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  United States | 18 | 17 | 7 | 92 |
| 2 |  France | 1 | 2 | 5 | 12 |
| 3 |  New Zealand | 1 | 0 | 3 | 6 |
| 4 |  Australia | 0 | 2 | 1 | 5 |
| 5 |  Canada | 0 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| 6 |  Greece | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Total | 17 | 17 | 15 | 49 | |
- NB: Cross country, grenade throwing, and the Army of Occupation events did not count towards the team standings.
This was one of your best and most timely productions which I enjoyed from front to back. I was especially intrigued by two things: (1) the suppression of the press because it was war time and (2) the idea that President Wilson might have contracted the flu rather than a stroke as is usually reported. If the press could be suppressed today, it would surely happen but that is one of the safeguards of the US that keeps people in power honest, or at least unable to get away with murder, just manslaughter. Wilson's inability at the Treaty of Versailles was tragic no matter what the cause because the unusually harsh terms placed on the Germans are usually given as one of the biggest reasons for WW II. Could it have been the flu? Maybe it was a stroke then the flu. In any case he was not himself.
Not many people are examining the 1918-19 pandemic these days, and if they are they are usually intellectual left-wingers who seldom get much of an audience other than on NPR or in track blogs. Nevertheless, your words really made me think about things and not want to repeat the tragedy of the Black Plague and the Spanish Influenza. I see this becoming one of the most emotional and politicized events of our lifetime, maybe equal to the Vietnam War or Civil Rights. The two camps have chosen sides, armed themselves with righteousness, and will start marching on each other very soon. What we have seen is the tip of the iceberg.
Bill
1 comment:
George,
Very interesting. Thanks for your research. I tried to leave a comment, but forgot my password. I have 100 or more of them and can't keep track of them. I misplaced my master list in my disorganization.
I had many talks with Aileen Riggin over the last 18 years of her life about how things were in the 1920s. Aileen won the gold in springboard diving in the '20 Games, as near as I can determine the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal, and then won silver in diving and bronze in the 100 backstroke in the '24 Games.
I got to know her during an interview in 1984 and then regularly had lunch with her until her death in 2002. She called me after I wrote something about the "Chariots of Fire" movie to correct me on a few things in the movie and then we got to be good friends.
Aileen mentioned the 1918 pandemic, but I can't recall anything she said about how it affected preparation and organization for the 1920 Games. What was clear, however, and I'm sure you know this, is that athletes at the time did relatively little preparation for the Olympics and most of that preparation was a month or two before the big event. It was more a matter of natural fitness plus a few dozen workouts of 30 minutes or so before the event. One has to only look at the times they turned in during those days to get some idea as to how they trained. Horatio Fitch, whose interview you ran a few years ago, said pretty much the same thing. As you may recall, he won the silver in the 400 at the Paris Games.
I do recall Aileen telling me that the decision to allow American women to compete in the Antwerp Games was a last-minute thing, although I don't recall if that was a matter of a few weeks or a few months. They no doubt assumed that natural fitness and a few weekend workouts were all that was necessary.
Clearly, the low-key nature of the Games in those days meant relatively little preparation. No need for big TV contracts and all the other preparations that go with it today. They probably could have organized it all three months in advance.
I knew Mike Ryan, who represented the U.S. in the 1912 Olympic marathon, but I never thought to ask him about his training. I assumed that since he ran the marathon that he wasn't fast enough to compete in any "real" events and didn't think of him as much of a runner. Mike founded the Santa Clara Valley Youth Village, one of the few clubs that gave former college athletes the opportunity to compete during the 1950s. He also owned a sporting goods store in Santa Clara, California. It was the only place in all of northern California that I knew of to get real running shoes. I still remember my first pair of adidas kangaroo-skin road shoes. The alternative was to draw an outline of your foot and mail it to New Balance on the East Coast.
Thanks again.
Mike Tymn
Kailua, Hawaii
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