Andy Masters talks Olympic athletics on Wednesday in the MSC Century Room A. (Photo by Ahmad Aljuryyed for The Current)
Wednesday’s News at Noon asked the question: “Why aren’t the Russians bringing home all the golds?” Susan Brownell, professor of anthropology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, attempted to answer that question and discussed with guests what she termed as the “new world order” of the Olympics.
For Brownell—a nationally-ranked and record breaking track and field athlete for both the United States and China, and author of ‘Training the Body for China’—sport is a lens through which the interactions, negotiations, competitions and even conflicts of geopolitics can be viewed. It is a stage on which these global issues play out. The Olympics are thrilling in ways to her that even the most riveted casual watcher cannot imagine.
“I’ve attended the Los Angeles, Atlanta, Athens and Beijing games,” Brownell said at News at Noon, this semester’s first installment of a series of interactive informative round-table forums co-sponsored by The Current and The New York Times.
Wednesday’s News at Noon saw the forum in a new venue: the Millennium Student Center’s SGA chambers. Student, faculty and alumni audience members filed in, partook in free pizza and lemonade paid for by the New York Times, and took their seats. Brownell positioned herself at a table in front of the room and distributed an article from the Times to audience members. The formatting of the program calls for each topic to center around a Times article and Brownell had selected one that perfectly fit: a piece on Russia’s lackluster 2010 winter performance and its significance on social, historical and political arenas.
Brownell spoke of how Cold War era Olympic games were consistently marred by corrupt judging, doping and other behind-the-scenes malpractices. In those years, the Soviet Union (as well as many other countries) saw excellence in sport as a necessary display of their power and the effectiveness of socialism. However, since the fall of the Soviet Union, many top Russian athletes left the country and a fair number moved to the United States.
“At any skating institution that you go to in most any large state there will be a Russian instructor. Here in St. Louis we have a former 1981 Olympic medalist who teaches,” Brownell said. She consulted him in preparation for this forum.
One topic that came up with him and sparked interest from the News at Noon audience was that of funding. Brownell told a shocked audience that the U.S. Olympics Committee makes more money from the games than all 204 other committees combined.