Appeal for Stones Touches Athletes

When Marco Rapp received a plea for a stone from Switzerland, he read the letter twice to make sure Olympic organizers weren’t joking.

Then the track and field hopeful dashed gamely to the nearest river, picked up the biggest and most dazzling specimen he could find and hauled it all the way to Seoul.

The same spirit motivated athletes from 118 of the 160 participating countries. Apparently they all appreciated the host nation’s zeal to mark the Summer Games with a monument of natural rocks.

In a country where rock collecting is a national pastime, sculptors will use a warehouse full of contributions to form a base for a monolith to Olympic spirit. The structure will be constructed entirely from more than 4,500 rocks that came from competitor’s yards, roadsides, parks, streams and mountainsides.

“From the distant past, sages and scholars of the Orient have enjoyed collecting beautiful natural rocks,” said Tun Sung-lee, who helps coordinate the project in the middle of the Athletes’ Village. “They are cherished as objects enriching mental and spiritual life.”

Once the domain of noblemen with an appreciation for nature’s beauty, the passion now entices the entire population. “They’re beautiful,” Tun said, holding up a particularly colorful hunk of granite from Spain.

In the aim of motivating as many athletes and officials as possible, organizers turned their “Stone Festival” into a global rock hunt. Athletes started scouring their countrysides and shorelines for special contributions.

“I thought it was a really novel idea,” said Fred Loek, a Canadian rowing coach. “So I took my family to a Vancouver beach and told my two kids to look for the prettiest rocks.

“They were so excited about the project, and now I have two Olympic pennants to bring back to them for their efforts.” The pennants were handed out to all contributors as souvenirs.

Loek said he selected the shore for the search “because I wanted rocks that really typified my homeland.”

The same motivation moved Rapp. “But the rock I picked up was so huge I ended up chipping parts of it away. There wasn’t any other way to shove it in my luggage.”

The response from the Soviet Union was so enthusiastic their 500 rocks were flown separately in crates. France produced 400, but the United States yielded only five--from the biggest athletic contingent of the Games. Among those failing to bring as much as a pebble were war-weary Iran and Iraq.

The Japanese brought a hefty 135 and the Indians crated so many Tun hasn’t started counting them yet, but he was told several were picked up near the sacred Ganges River.

A particularly coveted contribution is a marble slab from Italy. Tun and 10 other workers busily label each rock with its country of origin. For weeks they helped arrivals place their stones in nets. They carried loads to the storage center.

The project reminded track coach Bryan McKinnon of cairns, the conical heaps of stones constructed along mountain trails in Scotland.

“Hikers traditionally add a stone or two,” he said.

“I really appreciate what the South Koreans are doing,” he said. “The monument will be a striking symbol of the participation by so many nations using the most natural of all objects.”

Canadian rower Heather Hallen said she almost forget about the stone drive until the night before departure.

“We were staying in a hotel,” she said. “I remembered I didn’t have a rock so I dashed to a dump site and picked up whatever I could get.”