Munich 1972

The beginning of the end of amateur athletics.

We left the story at JFK as I embarked on the non-hitchhiker portion of this roadtrip. I loved flying and slept not at all, drinking in every second. The one stop in Reykjavik – we were required to visit the duty-free shop – was immaterial to me; funds being what they were. The only thought continually circling my brain – I was going to THE OLYMPICS!

Sports were a very different scene in 1972. The average salary of a major league baseball player was $20,000 and amateur players were the rule for most sports. Steroids were rumored to be in use – though technically illegal – and sports governing bodies were facing legal and moral issues they had never been required to consider. Television had begun broadcasting the Olympics commercially in 1960, with CBS paying $50,000 for that right to the Winter Games. That success had led to the first satellite broadcast games in 1968; and recognition of the global stage this provided when two black US track medalists raised black gloved fists during the medal ceremony. The 1972 games were the games first remembered more for the political events than the sports, as the spotlight TV shone was coveted by those with political goals; but there were changes within sport that were also driven by events in Munich.

The Olympics themselves were advertised and touted by the International Olympic Committee, the group of oligarchs who to this day totally control the Olympics, as completely restricted to amateur athletes, a policy dating to the beginning of the modern Olympics in 1896. The definition of an amateur was an athlete who did not receive money for athletic performance. In my experiences during this roadtrip I would become acutely aware of how the world worked, and how duplicitously hypocritical it was possible for people to be. The metamorphosis: From the first modern Olympics – which were amateur for the simple reason that those with the leisure time to devote to sports had no need for money, to a TV spectacle worth billions to the oligarchs of the IOC, requiring elite world-class athletes for whom the sport is more than a career; was going through major growing pains in 1972. The communist countries exposed – primarily through the East German female athletes – the myth of amateur, and I would personally witness the changeover as my involvement in and love affair with the Olympics went through the 1984 LA games, the last time there was even a pretense of amateur athletes.

This is the setting my 20 year old, tiger-by-the-tail, incredibly naïve persona rode into as I thumbed from Luxemburg to Munich. The Olympics are chock-full of ideals, and I was an idealist. When I landed I thumbed till dark, found a patch of woods for a bed site, and the next day made it to Munich. When picked up I would say I was going to the games, which was where everyone was going. I got there and went to the Olympic Park, where my ride was going! Thus far the only nights I had spent in cities had been in airports, camping in a city is different. I had joined the youth hostels and theoretically could stay in any hostel for very cheap – room available. The few times I tried room was typically unavailable. At the Olympic Park there was a nice wooded hill pretty centrally located and I claimed a spot, along with a few dozen others, mostly hitchhikers like myself. My pack would remain at my site as was fairly common, anything of value was kept on your person. The opening ceremonies had occurred and officially events had started, but swimming was a day away yet. I inquired where one could buy scalped tickets and that was Marienplatz, the central plaza of München. I had taken a couple of years of German before quitting school and was trying to use my knowledge – results were poor but typically gained me points for the attempt. Later in France, communicating(?) with the French driver who spoke ‘ein bisschen’ German I learned how poor my German was.

Marienplatz was in the middle of the city and all buses and trains went there. If memory serves – which is a BIG if – public transportation during the games was free. This was the marketplace for tickets, both the official ones and the free market ones. My budget for tickets was – I didn’t have one. I had a stash of American dollars which I could invest, in hopes of doing some advantageous horse-trading, and eventually get my money back (not in dollars of course) along with tickets to see swimming. Horse-trading is definitely a learn-as-you-go skill, and I learned a lot – mostly from my mistakes. My advantage was I had LOTS of time (no money to be doing anything else!); my disadvantage was swimming – thanks to Mark Spitz – was a very hot ticket. What I learned quickly was the venues were designed to seat an optimal number for the medal contest, like swimming finals; and therefore there were quite a few unoccupied seats/available tickets for the rest, like swimming preliminaries. Eventually I was able to get a ticket to one swimming finals session – because Spitz wasn’t in it; I also got one diving session and two water-polo matches before I figured out the symbols and that ‘wasser’ didn’t always equate to ‘swimming’ - and the tickets were cheap because nobody wanted them! I was also able to get four tickets to preliminaries; one including Spitz – heats of his 100 fly.

Most of my time was spent in the main center of the Olympic Park, which was literally a five minute walk from the wooded hill. There one could find hundreds of TVs showing EVERYTHING that was happening. Staked out my spot for the swimming sessions and, with snacks and water bottle, watched every heat. At least a couple of days I spent the six or so hours between preliminary and final sessions at the center watching other sports; it was fascinating to be able to watch thirty or more sports happening by walking through a building!

It was a little after six on my third morning in Olympic Park when I was roused by police yelling in German: Sunrise was soon and the message was clear; you can’t stay here. I had been pleasantly surprised to be allowed to stay there at all, but the numbers had grown each night; so it was expected that the welcome wouldn’t last. Took my pack and went on a bus ride looking for an alternative, my reasoning was suburbs would be better than in town. I found a neatly kept business of some sort which was apparently closed for the games, with a large hedge surrounding it and figured so long as nobody saw me going into the hedge or out of it, nobody would care: A supposition that proved true. Even better, my reconnaissance of the neighborhood revealed a hotel with an indoor pool: I devised a way to impersonate a guest to use the pool – which of course meant I had to shower first! Included was some enjoyable conversations with actual guests, for whom I was ‘staying on the third floor’ if asked. This neighborhood would be home for the remainder of my time in Munich.

I was reveling in just being in the same city as the biggest ever swimming event of my time! In swimming, these games were truly an amazing event; with every event a new Olympic Record – 20 of 29 also World Records. Mark Spitz’s achievement overshadowed that of Australian Shane Gould who came into these games holding ALL the women’s freestyle world records, and won three gold, silver and bronze, the five individual medals in one Olympics still unmatched. The USA, led by Spitz, won 43 medals – 17 gold, and dominated as expected: Second with 10 was Australia and Gould. In the 400 IM Swede Gunnar Larsen touched the electronic touchpad (first time ever used in an international meet) in the same time as American Tim McKee. The Swede was declared gold medalist when a check showed he had activated the touchpad two one-thousandths of a second sooner. This decision would produce a rules debate in the Swimming Coaches Convention I would soon attend that led to the change; times equal at the hundredth would be a tie.

Despite the record-breaking achievements, the talk in Olympic swimming circles was about the East German women. Germany had never been a swimming powerhouse, particularly the women who won zero medals in the 1968 games: In Munich they finished third – second in the women, with nine medals, two gold. The East Germans had been making huge inroads in world swimming for the past couple of years – because they embraced weight training according to their coaches (then a very new idea for swimmers): The rest of the swimming world credited steroids. When I saw the EG women up close it made sense. The musculature was unlike anything I had ever seen on a swimmer – of either sex: And there were lower voices and a tendency toward body hair documented by others with closer contact than I. They had been the subject of increasing testing protocols and had – with a few notable exceptions – passed; but discussions centered not on if they were on steroids, but how they were beating the tests.

My idealistic myth shattered by the EG women was amateurism. When the communist countries had realized the political value of a strong national showing; in a world locked in a cold war that was very much heated, in a West German Olympics that would feature a rising East German group of athletes, preceding a Moscow games in eight years that America would boycott – and the LA games four years later Russia boycotted; amateurism became an impediment to their purposes. Much was made of the fact that the communist athletes were in the military which housed, fed and paid them; but not for athletic performance, though their military duties were – unofficially – training. While we were quick to castigate the Russians and East Germans, the American system of college athletic scholarships is clearly recompense for athletic performance, but it’s not supposed to count since it’s in tuition – and room, board, books – all of which would otherwise cost: Money. In talking to coaches at the coming convention the point was made that there was no choice about taking steroids on the part of the EG swimmers, or anything else for that matter. This was a major topic of countless discussions, some heated – some not, which I would engage in throughout this roadtrip, and for many years into the future.

The last day of swimming was Monday, September 4^th; my Icelandic flight back to JFK was on the fourteenth, a Thursday. This was giving me ten days to look around Europe after the games. During my last year in college, now a little more than a year previous, a friend and dorm-mate Peter who was Austrian had told me if I ever came to Europe I should visit him. I had called when planning this roadtrip and now my itinerary included Linz, a short distance from Munich, followed by as much of Europe as me and my thumb could afford.

I awoke early and left my hedge and caught a ride to Salzburg, right on the Austrian border and about halfway to Linz. I was dropped at the on ramp to the autobahn and found two couples and several lone hitchhikers already there. The rule with multiple hitchhikers is the first there gets the top of the ramp; everyone else spaces themselves down the ramp and the rides can then choose to whom they want to give a ride, the top being most likely whereupon everyone moves up the ramp. My ride from Munich had chosen me because I held an American flag picture I had drawn on a manila folder (a trick which gave you an edge for those who like Americans – most – while ensuring those who didn’t would pass you by) and he spoke English and wanted to practice. I say this because we didn’t listen to the radio at all, just talked. Likewise none of those on the ramp had any contact with the outside world as we waited on the ramp. I got there mid-day and at about five there were six of us still there, of maybe twenty that had come and gone during that time: Not one person had gotten a ride! Hitchhiking is always hit-or-miss but this wasn’t a miss – this was a vacuum!

A minivan stopped at the top and picked up a couple; then stopped for the other four of us, each in turn: With eight in the van it was tight, but once we were all in the driver said: “I picked you up because nobody else is going to: Terrorists are holding Israeli athletes hostage in Munich, and they’re telling everyone to avoid strangers.” Since then many times I have tried to connect that event to my experiences; the abduction actually took place as I slept in the hedge, the press would have learned the next morning as I caught my ride out of Munich, both of us blissfully unaware as we chatted. This was the first any of the six of us had heard – and it hit like the proverbial bombshell!

The couple was headed a little ways into Austria to their apartment, and offered floor space to all. We were able to watch TV and soon knew all that was being released, and muted the volume as we talked in at least three languages but mostly German, meaning I understood very little: There was no mistaking the emotions however. Experiencing another culture, particularly when you don’t speak the language, demonstrates how much of our personal communication occurs not in our words, but in the inflection and body language with which they’re delivered. Several understood at least some English, so I was able to contribute; which probably contributed more to my ego than the discussion.

The rest of the roadtrip lay under the influence of the Israeli massacre, as it later became known. I was there – but I wasn’t. It cost me half a day on an autobahn ramp; and the final shreds of my idealistic youth. I enjoyed the rest of my roadtrip immensely, but when I looked back at Munich: Well, it had been one hell of an Olympics! That was a fact!