Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.08.2012, Blaðsíða 32

Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.08.2012, Blaðsíða 32
Iceland was a bitter pill to swallow, the nation was left with a sweet aftertaste when the Swedish press fell in love with the Icelandic folk sport of glíma. Swed- ish newspaper Aftonbladet even hailed it as “The most beautiful sport that we have seen showcased at the Stadium.” A Canadian hockey team of Icelanders wins gold Despite this early occupation with na- tional identity, ÍSÍ decided to forgo the 1920 Olympics held in Antwerp. In a book by Frímann Helgasson ‘Fram til orustu’ (“To Battle”), Icelandic mara- thon runner (and later famous pho- tographer) Jón Kaldal bitterly recalled that competing in these games “was the most disappointing point of [his] athletic career,” because ÍSÍ refused to support his application as an Icelander and he was forced to compete with the Danish team. In 1920, however, we sort of also won our first and only gold medal (so far) through the Canadian Winnipeg Falcons hockey team. All but one of the team members were either born in Iceland or to Icelandic immigrants, and they were coached by one of Iceland’s glíma wrestlers from 1908, Guðmun- dur Sigurjónsson (who as it happens was also the last man to be convicted for sodomy in Iceland, in 1924). In cel- ebration of this victory, the Icelandic ice hockey team has had a falcon and a maple leaf on its logo since 2002. Icelanders are special because we ride polar bears Competing for the first time since achieving independence from the Danes in 1944, the Icelandic national team walked proudly at the opening ceremony of the 1948 London Games (also called the Austerity Games). Fin- ishing twelfth out of his group of 35, Icelandic decathlonist Örn Clausen stirred up media attention when he admitted to the press that he had never done a decathlon and had not known what was involved. A bit of a prankster, Örn set BBC phone lines ablaze when he told viewers: “Icelanders are special because we ride polar bears and use them to pull our wagons.” An Icelander did not get that much media attention at the Olympics until musician Björk opened the Olympics at Athens 2004. There she unfurled a 10,000 square metre dress that re- vealed a map of the world billowing over the athletes whilst lip-syncing to a playback of her track, “Oceania.” Finally, Icelanders win some medals In November 1956, we became winners. The Games were held in Melbourne, and local press reports quipped that it was so cold that even the Icelanders were shivering. Due to a lack of funds, the smallest team that year consisted of two Icelandic men who had to hitch a ride on the last two seats available on the Swedish and Norwegian aeroplanes f lying to the Games. The selection was tough, but it paid off when triple jump- er Vilhjálmur Einarsson set an Olym- pic record of 16.25m. Only minutes later the Brazilian world record holder Ferreira Da Silva beat him by 10cm, but Vilhjálmur came in second place and won Iceland’s first non-Canadian Olympic medal. Silence fell on the tiny arena host- ing a judo match in Los Angeles in 1984 when Iceland’s Bjarni Friðriksson beat the USA’s Leo White on his home turf. The small crowd of Icelanders, who had hardly made a sound amidst the righteous cheers supporting Leo, were overjoyed. This might have been enough, but Bjarni went on to bring home Iceland’s first medal in 28 years, finishing third place in the men’s half- heavyweight judo. Bjarni put the bronze medal down to his first ever beer. Recalling the mo- ment he knew what he would win in the book ‘Íslendingar á Ólympíuleikum’ Bjarni said, “having got myself a slice of pizza, I was really thirsty and there was nothing but beer on the table. On the first sip I said to myself, there goes the gold, then went the silver. At that point my coach intervened and stopped me from drinking another drop. I knew then that the bronze was mine.” Vala Flosadóttir was the first Ice- landic woman to compete in pole vault at the spectacular Sydney Olympics in 2000. Adding fourteen centimetres to her personal record, and setting new records in Iceland and the Nordic countries, her 4.50 metre height was an unbelievable triumph. In an interview with Morgunblaðið just after the event, she told the newspaper, “I had to ask the Danish competitor whether it was true, what was on the board, or whether I had double vision.” “Iceland is the biggestest country in the world” declared Dorrit Moussaieff, the presidential first lady, on national radio in 2008. This was minutes af- ter our handball team came in second place at the Beijing Olympics. They had begun well, beating Germany, the world champions at the time. Losing by one point to South Korea, they went on to score a dramatic last minute penalty against the Danish side that brought them to 32-32 draw. Clawing their way to the finals, they were easily defeated by favourites, France. This did nothing to take away from their winning a sil- ver medal in the eyes of the Icelandic press, however, and there was even talk of making a 2024 bid to hold the Olym- pics in Reykjavík. We may not be the biggest, but we have certainly got heart. And accord- ing to our calculations, the frequency of medal winning is getting exponen- tially higher. Unfortunately it won’t be thanks to our men’s handball team this year, which lost to Hungary in the semi-finals. 32 The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 12 — 2012 Iceland | Olympics Four Medals In 104 Years Continued WHAT ON EARTH IS GLÍMA? Glíma is a uniquely Icelandic form of wrestling that has been demonstrated at the Olympics on a number of oc- casions. The match sees competitors standing upright gripping each other’s belts, which are worn around the hips and thighs. They tread clockwise in circles around each other until one makes the other touch the ground with any body part that is not the lower arms or lower legs. As Swedish news- paper Aftonbladet described the sport in 1912, “after a cordial handshake, the competitors take a firm grip of each other’s leather belts and start making dance-like moves where the oppo- nents pull each other into the air as if standing in a weightless space.”
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