Saturday, July 28, 2012

Olympic Poetry - 1912 Winner

                                     Ode To Sport
Georges Hohrod, & M. Eschbach
(Pseudonym Pierre de Coubertin)
Awarded a prize in the sports literature
competition in the V Olympiad - Stockholm 1912.

Ode to sport
Oh Sport, pleasure of the Gods essence of life, you appeared suddenly in the midst of the grey clearing which writhes with the drudgery of modern existence, like the radiant messenger of a past age, when mankind still smiled.
O Sport, you are Beauty! You are the architect of that edifice which is the human body and which can become abject or sublime according to whether it is defiled by vile passions or improved through healthy exertion.
There can be no beauty without balance and proportion, and you are the peerless master of both, for you create harmony, you give movements rhythm, you make strength graceful and you endow suppleness with power.
O Sport, you are Justice! The perfect equity for which men strive in vain in their social institutions is your constant companion. No one can jump a centimetre higher than the height he can jump, nor run a minute longer than the length he can run.
The limits of his success are determined solely by his own physical and moral strength.
O Sport, you are Audacity! The meaning of all muscular effort can be
summed up in the word ‘dare’. What good are muscles, what is the point of feeling strong and agile, and why work to improve one’s agility and strength, unless it is in order to dare? But the daring you inspire has nothing in common with the adventurer’s recklessness in staking everything on chance.
Yours is a prudent, well-considered audacity.
races abundantly through the arteries.
Thoughts stretch out on a brighter, clearer horizon. To the sorrowful you can even bring salutary diversion from their distress, whilst the happy you enable fully to savour their joie de vivre.
O Sport, you are Progress! To serve you, a man must improve himself
both physically and spiritually.
You force him to abide by a greater discipline; you demand that he avoid all excess.
You teach him wise rules which allow him to exert himself with the maximum of intensity without compromising his good health.