The new playing field
Drug tests will be tough. The sun is brutal and Anti-Americanism could sway judges and crowds
ATHENS--You'd think these would be the most familiar playing fields on Earth to Olympic athletes. Shot-putters will heave their 16-pound spheres in the very temple in Olympia where the games were founded in 776 B.C. Marathoners will start their 26 miles to Athens from the spot in the town of Marathon where Phidippides set out in 490 B.C. And archers will shoot their arrows in the stadium where the Olympics were revived in 1896.
But when the games begin on August 13, Olympians--especially the U.S. contingent--will step onto a new, and in many ways more challenging, field. It's not just because of quirks like Greece's one-of-a-kind white-water course, filled with eye-stinging, harder-to-paddle salt water instead of fresh water. The competition will be tenser because of an unprecedented crackdown on doping. Most disturbingly, thanks in part to the global unpopularity of America's war in Iraq, for the first time in history the U.S. team could become the world's whipping boy--and bear the added burden of performing before unfriendly crowds and judges.
Perhaps the single most important test for American athletes is a mental one: getting fired up to do their best in front of a crowd that may be rooting against them. Polls indicate that Europeans and Arabs have adopted harshly negative views of America since the U.S.-led attack on Iraq. American athletes have been booed, jeered, and even spat upon in recent international meets.
Such hostile crowds can undermine performance. A study by economists at Duke and Baylor universities found that basketball teams are more than one third more likely to win in front of hometown crowds. So don't expect the U.S. team to match its 101-medal count from Atlanta. Indeed, anti-Americanism may have already helped dash some Olympic dreams. The U.S. soccer team missed its chance to play in Athens when it lost a February match to Mexico in front of a Guadalajara crowd chanting "Osama, Osama." Says Nat Borchers, a defender for the U.S. team: "We played Honduras, Panama, and Canada, and each game the Mexican fans would come to cheer against us. It can be disheartening."
Boo power. How do you beat the jeers of the crowd? Repeating catchphrases, such as "rhythm and flow," that help you concentrate on the task at hand is one method the Americans are practicing. Using boos as a motivator is another. Erik Vendt, who will swim the freestyle and individual medley, has learned to thrive off gibes that now greet him at European meets. "I like it," says the 23-year-old Massachusetts native, who wants to become a Navy SEAL. "There's nothing wrong with being a villain."
Unless the judges agree with the crowd. Some coaches expect to see anti-American bias in the judging of sports such as diving, boxing, and gymnastics. "We will face organized and aggressive anti-American feelings fueled especially by France," asserts Bela Karolyi, the longtime gymnastics coach, whose wife, Marta, now directs the U.S. women's team. He fears former Soviet satellites may take advantage of this new European unity to revive "bloc voting" : swapping votes with judges from neighboring countries to raise their athletes' scores.
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