Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.08.2012, Síða 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.”