Readers Full of the Olympic Spirit

The Summer Olympics are not one man’s opinion.

They are 6 billion people’s impressions.

They are not one writer’s predictions.

They are what the athletes no one has ever heard of before Sydney do.

They are not body suits designed to give more ad space to a shoe company that pays its employees starvation wages.

They are all the athletes who will never get an endorsement contract.

They are not the hype over what an American woman might do.

They are the wonder of what an unknown will do.

They are not politically correct.

They are simply not political.

And Bill [Plaschke, Sept. 10], dressage is an equestrian event and it’s Greco-Roman because the Greeks started the sport, and synchronized swimming will never be a sport.

SEAN BONAZZOLA, Bellflower

*

Kudos to Bill Plaschke for his searing piece on Australian Aboriginal sprinter and gold medal favorite Cathy Freeman.

Is it any wonder that Ms. Freeman has made herself scarce down under in the weeks and months leading up to the Sydney Olympics? What an excruciating duality to see oneself lionized on 10-story Sydney murals while keenly mindful that those who bestow national hero status upon you and view your athletic prowess as superhuman do so while deeming your Aboriginal race as essentially subhuman.

Again, it is ironic that the Olympic Games, which were designed to underscore humankind at its physical, social and spiritual best invariably underscore our human frailties and shortcomings instead.

Whether it be Cathy Freeman in Sydney 2000 or Jesse Owens and Jewish American sprinter Frank Wycoff in Berlin 1936, clearly the more things change, the more they stay the same.

MICHAEL LAZAROU, Encino