Category: On This Date

On This Date, December 12: The First Table Tennis Organization

12/12/2014

It's easy to think of table tennis as an 'Asian' sport - today's Chinese and East Asian dominance, combined with a lasting image of Nixon's ping-pong diplomacy have perhaps cemented that notion in collective heads.

But the sport has a decidedly aristocratic English heritage. Developed as a table version of, well, tennis, it gained popularity amongst the upper crust in the 1880's as an after-dinner leisure. It was so popular that three different names were patented for game set sales - Gossima, Whiff-Whaff, and Ping Pong by the turn of the century.

But the first step toward real competition and organization came on this date in 1901, with The Table Tennis Association forming in England. This is also the year that the celluloid ball was first used, as well as the game first being introduced into China through western settlements there. And, a competing 'Ping Pong Association' was formed. 'The Table Tennis Association' survived a merger with PPA, name changes, and waning popularity to resettle in the early 1920's as the English Table Tennis Association, leading to the International Table Tennis Federation launching in 1926 along with the first world championships, appropriately in London.

Today, the game counts as many as 30 million players, and is relatively played the same way as back in 1901, save some advancements in paddles. And, it's been played in the Olympics since 1988. (What took them so long??) What would those early game developers think today?

On This Date, December 04: The Stella Walsh 'Question' Solved

12/4/2014

On this date in 1980, Olympic champion sprinter Stella Walsh was shot and killed during a robbery, while shopping at a local Cleveland store. The resulting autopsy turned what had been a post-competitive quiet life into a posthumous public examination of past whispers and gender definitions.

Walsh, born Stanislawa Walasiewicz in 1911 Poland, moved to the States as an infant and grew up in Cleveland. As a teen, she became an active athlete, and - not eligible for U.S. citizenship, represented Poland at the 1930 Women's World Games. She continued her Polish representation at the 1932 and 1936 Olympics, winning 100 meters gold and silver, respectively (while also competing in the discus in 1932) and becoming a national hero. She eventually settled back in Cleveland, and finally earned U.S. citizenship, and continued racing into the 50's, winning a national title in 1951 at age 40. For her efforts, she had also been recognized as an American sports hero, being inducted into the U.S. Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1975. Eventually, she had set over 100 national or world records during her career.

But throughout her career, she was often criticized as being 'manly'. So, when a routine autopsy after her death revealed that she actually did have male genitalia, the sporting world pounced. Walsh had been raised - and ostensibly always had lived as - female, but had a condition of underdeveloped genitalia of both sexes.

There have been calls for her name to be stricken from the books, but she carried a birth certificate indicating female, and there were no sex-identification tests when she competed. So, her career stands. But the larger issues her examination raised are still there today - how to 'test' female athletes for masculinity, and how to do that sensitively, if at all. Some female athletes may have unusual but completely natural-causing male characteristics. As the recent cases of Caster Semenya and Dutee Chand prove, sport hasn't quite solved the problem yet, let alone tactfully. Somewhat luckily for Walsh, the harsh spotlight of modern medicine wasn't available to officials when she competed, and her records hold. Perhaps one day in a more enlightened future, she will be more remembered as a positive forbearer, for taking advantage of her natural physical attributes. That will be a lasting legacy to hold.

On This Date, December 03: Japan's Judo Streak Ends

12/3/2014

Judo was created as a modern martial art in Japan in 1882, and Japan dominated the progression and success of the sport through the initial World Judo Championships in 1956. At the third Worlds, the competition not only was held outside Japan but - on this date in 1961 - the sport had its first non-Japanese world champion in the Netherlands' Anton Geesink.

He not only repeated his win at the 1965 Worlds, but also was the lone non-Japanese judo gold medalist at the 1964 Olympics - which must have been a bitter result for the Tokyo home crowd.

Geesink quit competition in 1967, after a career in which he earned seven European titles (and two third-places), in addition to the two World titles and the Olympic gold. In 1987, he became a member of the International Olympic Committee, and in 1997 earned an honorary doctorate from Kokushikan University, renown for its success and reverence for judo.

To date, Japan's still the top nation in the sport, with 287 total medals at the Worlds (France is far behind in second with 145). But Geesink's legacy reverberates still - the Netherlands has a respectable 7th all-time place in medals at Worlds (with 75), and the same at the Olympics (seven). An imposing man at 6'6", Geesink obviously still looms large in the sport.

On This Date, November 30: The First International Soccer Match

11/30/2014

On this date in 1872 (1872!), the 'first ever official international association football match' was played.

The game was England vs Scotland, and played at the Hamilton Creek cricket grounds in Partick, Scotland. Although England had been playing Scotland in organized matches since 1870, the Scots who played were largely Londoners. Back in Scotland - and even within the Football Association in England, there was growing interest in a match featuring homegrown and local Scots.

In 1872, despite a Scottish Football Association not yet existing, the Queen's Park football club picked up the challenge and hosted the match. Tickets cost one shilling, and 4,000 spectators showed up for the match which ended in a 0-0 draw. Reports indicate that Scotland came closest to winning with one disallowed goal, and one closing shot attempt off the makeshift crossbar. Even back then, the signature national uniforms were set - England in white, Scotland in blue, although both teams apparently wore caps or hoods.

12 years later in 1884, the British Home Championship became the first international tournament, featuring England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. (Scotland won) The International Olympic Committee held soccer as a demonstration sport in 1900 and again in 1904. And, that same year, FIFA was founded, with the first World Cup finally arriving in 1930. The seeds of today's World Cup were laid back then in 1872. What started as a friendly national challenge has become a spectacle of sport and international competition...who would have thought?

On This Date, November 28: De Coubertin Has a Proposal

11/28/2014

Pierre de Coubertin is largely credited as 'the father of the modern Olympics' for his work in establishing the International Olympic Committee, and with good reason. An educated man from an aristocratic family, Pierre de Freddy, Baron de Coubertin gravitated to the studies of education, and particularly physical education. That, combined with an interest in ancient Greece led him to try to incorporate more sport into French schooling. Eventually, he extended that thinking into a presentation at the Societes Francais de Sports Athletiques convention on this date in 1892, in which he pleaded:

"Let us export our oarsmen, our runners, our fencers into other lands. That is the true Free Trade of the future; and the day it is introduced into Europe the cause of Peace will have received a new and strong ally. It inspires me to touch upon another step I now propose and in it I shall ask that the help you have given me hitherto you will extend again, so that together we may attempt to realise [sic], upon a basis suitable to the conditions of our modern life, the splendid and beneficent task of reviving the Olympic Games."

Although this didn't immediately spur any action, he tried again at organized meeting of 79 delegates from nine countries two years later, in which he did succeed in receiving support to further organize a 'Games' and what would be the original Olympic Committee.

Although others had presented Olympic-inspired competition since, the world 1st saw a glimpse of de Coubertin's own Olympic vision back in 1892, and although it took a while and a lot of persistence, he made it happen. I wonder what he would think today of the Games, and their magnitude and splendor. Do they today fulfill his vision? "Free Trade of the future"? "The cause of peace will have received a new and strong ally."? Amen.

<<Previous

On This Date, December 12: The First Table Tennis Organization

On This Date, December 04: The Stella Walsh 'Question' Solved

On This Date, December 03: Japan's Judo Streak Ends

On This Date, November 30: The First International Soccer Match

On This Date, November 28: De Coubertin Has a Proposal

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