Deutsche Presse-Agentur
August 13, 2004, Friday

FEATURE: Being the first Olympic champion is special at the Games

By

John Bagratuni, dpa

Athens

The first Olympic gold medal awarded is special at any Olympics, and
like four years ago in Sydney it will be the winner of the women’s 10
metres air-rifle event on Saturday. At the first modern Olympics in
1896, by contrast, it was the men’s triple jump. The first winners in
1896 and 2000 were Americans, James Connolly and Nancy Johnson, and
they both created plenty of interest. Connolly quit Harvard
University after having a request for leave of absence for the
Olympics turned down. Legend has it that the 27-year-old spent his
life savings for a ticket aboard a German freighter to fulfil his
Olympic dream in Athens. It was well worth the investment as
Connolly, one of 12 children of Irish-Catholic parents from Boston,
won the triple jump Olympic title with 13.71 metres, finished second
in the high jump and third in the long jump. “I breathed into my
palms and waited, taking time to measure the path with my eye while
doing so. “But more than everything else, I was waiting for that wave
of high energy which will come to the man who is gathering himself
for a big try, if he will but wait for it,” the NBC Olympic website
recalled him as saying. The triple jump victory made him the first
Olympic champion in 1,527 years since Varesdates, Prince of Armenia,
who won the boxing event in 369 AD. The ancient Olympics were
outlawed in 393 AD by Roman Emperor Theodosius because he considered
them pagan. Connolly did not return home until May 1896, alone and
unnoticed. He later became a famous journalist and writer. In 1949,
he turned down a Harvard honorary doctorate. He died at the age of
88. Johnson, meanwhile, claimed a surprise air-rifle gold in Sydney
four years ago after miraculously overcoming a muscle-wasting illness
at the age of 17. “The doctors talked me up as a medical mystery
because they never really found out what happened apart from severe
nerve damage and muscle atrophy in my left arm and left side,”
Johnson said. “They indicated that they thought it was MS (multiple
sclerosis) and that I would be in a wheelchair within six months.
“They said ‘forget shooting, forget anything that requires you to use
both hands’,” she said. But six months later Johnson started
regaining feeling on her left side and was back in full health after
intensive physical therapy. The gold in Sydney was the icing on her
recovery. On Saturday, another air rifle athlete will make history as
the first Olympic champion of the 2004 Athens Games. dpa jb adh