Opinion Medals painted gold

Even then,the Swedish organisers were none too keen,arguing that judging art was a far slippier proposition than figuring out who threw the discus farthest. Still,the baron had his way. The arts Games were on,and continued until 1948. The animating idea was to award the prizes to work directly inspired by sport — a limitation that may have helped lead to their eventual demise. How many statues of muscle-bound athletes,how many paeans to the glory of manly competition,can the world really be expected to celebrate?

In his appositely titled book The Forgotten Olympic Art Competitions,Richard Stanton relates the details of this obscure byway of cultural history in enthusiastic prose. Who knew that Walter Winans,a Russian-born aristocrat who maintained US citizenship despite living mostly abroad,was the only Olympian to win medals in both sporting and cultural competition in the same Olympiad? In the 1912 games he took home the silver in “Team Running Deer — Single Shot” (since eliminated,we believe) and the gold medal for sculpture for “An American Trotter.”

Few immortals swim through the book’s pages. Jack Butler Yeats — younger brother of the poet W.B. — won the silver medal at the Paris competition in 1924 for “Natation (Swimming).” (Although the elder Yeats’s renown has far outstripped his brother’s,fellow Irishman Samuel Beckett was an admirer,and even wrote a poem celebrating his work.)

But does anyone still play the “Olympic Symphony” by Zbigniew Turski,a prize winner in the last competition,in London in 1948? Does anyone play anything by Zbigniew Turski? Somehow typical is this forlorn confession from Stanton,relating to the Finnish poet Aale Tynni: “As of this time,a copy of her gold medal poem ‘Hellaan Laakeri’ has not been located.” Sic transit gloria Tynni.

The dubiousness of judging aesthetic achievement by committee has been a common subject for complaint ever since awards began proliferating like wildflowers in the last half-century. The highly politicised nature of international competition only added to the problem,as becomes blindingly clear when you scan the list of arts winners from the infamous 1936 Games in Berlin. Man,those Germans and Austrians cleaned up! Austria took gold and bronze for architecture,Germany silver. Germany won all three medals for songs,as well as gold for lyric writing and silver for epic,gold for relief sculpture,two of three awards for town planning (shudder) and more. Who knew home-field advantage could extend so thoroughly into the aesthetic spheres?

It’s funny to imagine who might have “podiumed” in the arts categories had the competition continued for the rest of the 20th century. Might the lyric winner for the 1998 winter Olympics have been a tribute to the infamous skating scandal of the previous games,something titled “The Ballad of Tonya and Nancy”?

In keeping with de Coubertin’s dream of truly uniting the worlds of art and sport,I’d like to fancifully suggest that a resurrected arts competition blend disciplines,mixing the skills of Olympic sport with the aesthetics of the new century. One event could be the textathlon,which would involve high-speed texting while skiing,with random breaks for shooting,of course. Or a competition for Twitter haiku,to be composed while hurtling through the icy chutes of the luge.