As the 1956 Olympic Games came to a close, the Herald’s Gavin Souter looked back on the dramatic 17 days when the world’s spotlight shone on Melbourne.
By Gavin Souter
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, December 8, 1956
Those inevitable interlocking circles that we have come to know so well originally represented five particular continents. The blue circle stood for Europe, yellow for Asia, black for Africa, green for Australia and red for America. It is a pity that the International Olympic Committee hag since disavowed this symbolism, because green suited Australia very well. Green is the outstanding colour one remembers from the myriad hues of the Melbourne Games.
Australian teammates (from left) Norma Croker, Betty Cuthbert and Marlene Mathews, pictured at the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games on 30 November 1956.Credit:Gordon Short
AUSTRALIA’S athletes wore green track-suits and blazers, the office a souvenir of the opening ceremony had a green cover, the smart young women who drove the official Olympic cars wore dark-green uniforms, and Melbourne itself was beautifully green. It was green with plane trees along Royal Parade and St. Kilda Road, with oak trees and dark deodars, and with rows of shrubs and endless acres of lawn. Even the Press badges were green.
The dictionary defines green in many ways, from “full of vitality, not withered or worn out,” to “immature, undeveloped, inexperienced.”
In choosing green for the new continent of Australia, Baron Pierre de Coubertin probably had the first of these two meanings in mind, but there were moments during the often “hysterical” preparations for the Melbourne Games, when the Baron’s successors may well have found the second meaning more apt.
Who was right? Was the conduct of the Melbourne Games vital or immature? To Melbourne’s credit, it was vital.
There have been mistakes, of course. For one thing, the Games did not receive an adequate film coverage. The Olympic Organising Committee claims that newsreel monopolies have boycotted the Games and prevented available newsreels from reaching the widest possible audience; the newsreel companies, for their part, claim they were deprived of fret access to the Games. Either way. Australia has lost a good deal of valuable publicity.
TICKETS MUDDLE
Then there was the muddle over tickets. Through a clerical misunderstanding, thousands of tickets remained unsold while scalpers were reaping their harvest.
The victory ceremonies at the main stadium were often far too perfunctory. This may have sprung from official desire to dilute the strong nationalist element in the ceremony. At times, however, the national anthems (particularly the “Star-spangled Banner” ) were abbreviated to the point of ridicule.
The cinder track at the main stadium came in for some criticism from American and European runners. “Maybe it was some laid by the best man in England,” said one American, “but by the best American and European standards, it wasn’t so hot.” Vladimir Kuts, after his two distance races, complained that the cinders were too close on the inside track.
South American boxers complained about the referees but then losing boxers always complain about the referee.
Australian high jumper Charles ‘Chilla’ Porter on his way to the silver medal at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics Games.Credit:Fairfax Photographic
These are all minor criticisms. But the triumphs of the Melbourne Games were not minor – they were major.
WORLD UNREST
Consider the state of the world today. Russia is disembowelling Hungary, and neither Yugoslavia, Poland nor Rumania is happy about it. Britain and Greece disagree over Cyprus; the United States, India and Indonesia disapprove of the actions by Britain, France and Israel in Egypt, and Britain disapproves of America’s disapproval. And poor Melbourne must accommodate them all at the Olympic Village.
Melbourne did it, though.
Admittedly tempers were beginning to fray late this week. Hungarians and Russians turned water polo into a blood sport; the Americans questioned the integrity of a judge who had not been sufficiently impressed by an American diver; and three Irish cyclists tried to force their way into a road race. Spectators, largely inspired by New Australians, had also become less tolerant of the Russians.
But these lapses of taste came too late to spoil Melbourne’s record. Generally speaking, both athletes and spectators punctiliously observed a truce.
Part of the credit for this truce – ekecheiria, or “the truce of God,” as the Greeks called it – rests with the athletes themselves. But part of it must also go to the Australian officials who managed the athletes both on the arenas and out at the Olympic Village. Arena management was generally efficient, and so was the management of the Olympic Village, where 4,500 visitors from 68 nations lived in harmony. The green-uniformed car drivers were good, the Press relations section was good, and the police were good. They handled the traffic well and even managed to find a pretext for arresting scalpers.
Now who gets the credit for the credit-the laurel wreath for the laurel wreaths? The chief executive officer, Lieut.-General Sir William Bridge ford? We may certainly ascribe the military precision of the arena officials, and the efficiency of the Air Force and the Navy messengers at the stadium, to Sir William.
Erwin Zador injured in a water polo incident in 1956 Olympics in Melbourne between Russia and Hungary.Credit:Fairfax Archives
“GOLDEN BOY”
The technical director Mr. E. J. Holt? Mr. Holt, and Englishman who was director of organisation for the London Olympic Games in 1948, brought great experience to a formidable technical problem.
“Holt is my golden boy,” said one of the Olympic officials, asked to name the one man who had done more for the Melbourne Games than any other. But what about Mr. P. W. Nette, the administrative director? Mr. E. S. Tanner, honorary secretary to the organising committee? Mr. W. S. Kent Hughes, chairman of the organising committee?
It is impossible to tell. The organisation, like the Olympic Games itself, was a joint effort. It was a joint effort by 4,500 athletes, 2,000 officials, and an audience which rarely numbered less than 100,000 at the main stadium.
The audience was splendid, if a trifle chauvinistic. “They were just as good as the crowds at Moscow,” said Vladimir Kuts, who ought to know.
How successful were the Games from an athletic standpoint?
There was some concern at first about the effect of prolonged travel and an abrupt change of climate on athletes from the Northern Hemisphere. But this concern proved groundless.
During track and field events at the Helsinki Games in 1952, eight world records and 19 Olympic records were either broken or equalled. Athletes at the Melbourne Games have broken or equalled seven world records and 19 Olympic records. Perhaps some law of nature is involved; at any rate, achievement remains almost constant
THE WOMEN
Five of the seven track and field world records broken or equalled at Melbourne were the work of women (as compared with four of the eight at Helsinki). Betty Cuthbert equalled the 200-metre world record set by Marjorie Jackson in 1952; the Australian women’s relay team clipped 1.1s form a soviet team’s world record; Shirley Strickland broke the 80 metres hurdles world record set by a Russian; Mildred McDaniel of the United States, jumped three-quarters of an inch higher than the Russian world record of 5ft 81/2in; and Elzbieta Krzesinska, of Poland, equalled the world record of 20ft 93/4 in for the long jump.
The two world records broken by men were the javelin throw (Egil Denielsen, of Norway, threw an incredible 281ft 21/4in – 13 feet further than the record) and the 100 metres relay (America reduced by three-tenths of a second the old record set in 1936 by that fabulous American quartet of Owens, Metcalfe. Draper and Wykoff).
There are not many world records left now which were set earlier than 1948. At the start of the Melbourne Games, these long-lived records were: C. A. Warmerdam s pole vault of 15ft 7in in 1942; Jesse Owens’s 100 metres time of 10.2s set in 1936 and his long jump of 26ft 81/4in in 1935; and the 1936 American relay time of 39.8s.
Owens’s 100 metres time has been equalled time and time again, though never officially broken. And now the relay record has fallen. Only the pole vault and that magnificent lone jump of 1935 continue to defy the present generation of athletes. Once again, as is usual in these days of intensive competition, there were few outsiders at The Games. America and Russia so dominated track and field that one rapidly tired of hearing their anthems. Perhaps the closest approach to an outsider was N. Read, the New Zealander who won the 50,000 metres walk.
By and large, the Melbourne Games were as carefully planned and as faithfully executed as one of the city’s green parks. Everyone behaved punctiliously, and the favourites nearly always won.
But the Games, like the parks, had considerable charm. There are many things to remember with pleasure.
If the Games belonged to any one athlete, they belonged to Vladimir Kuts. Who could forget that courageous little figure, hands clasped over his head, as he trotted around the arena after an effort that would have killed most men?
Jim Bailey wins the third heat of the 800 metres, Melbourne Olympics, 1956.
Before the Games, Russia had been the villain of the piece; yet as Kuts, a Russian, was the hero of the Games. This surely says a great deal for Melbourne.
Every spectator will carry away his own memories of the Melbourne Games, and it is perhaps too soon yet to sort them all into proper perspective. There was that nerve-tingling struggle at dusk between the young Negro Charles Dumas and the australian Charles Porter. I can still see Dumas standing there in the twilight gathering himself together for the winning jump.
WINNING QUOTES
There was the enchanting Olga Fikitova, who, when asked whether shed had been confident of winning the discus throw replied: “I felt something in my legs that it could be quite a good today.” And Ron Delaney, as Irish as his shamrock-green tracksuit, a tall, spare boy with a long, bird-like face, saying softly: “Landy congratulated me, and said he wouldn’t have liked anyone else but myself to win it.”
I remember Egil Danielsen’s steel javelin flying on and on, as if borne by some mighty air current; the sound of a guitar coming from the Cuban house at the Olympic Village after dinner, and the Russians and the Yugoslavs playing deadly poker in the recreation hall; Mimoun kissing Zatopek after the marathon; the Bulgarian gymnast who disgraced herself by falling off the horizontal beam; the bloody faced Hungarian water polo player on television; and two green-suited figures, Betty Cuthbert and Marlene Matthews, walking hand-in-hand after running first and third in the 100 metres.
Now it is finished. Olympic torches are giving way to Christmas tress on the city shopfronts, and the Taxation Department has moved into the Press room to arrange clearances for foreign journalists.
The Sixteenth Olympiad will be remembered as the period during which the Games came to a new continent-the continent of the green circle. And Melbourne will be remembered, not for the greenness of immaturity, but for its young women in green track-suits, for its green lawns, and for its green plane trees and deodars.
