What? No Tug-of-War in the Olympics?

With the beginning of the Olympic Games in London it is finally time to give credit where credit is due to one of the lesser-known, competitions in the history of the Olympic games. I am, of course, referring to tug-of-war which was an official Olympic competition from the Paris games in 1900 through the 1920 games in Antwerp.


I am not making this up.


Great Britain will forever remain the ultimate champion of tug-of-war at an Olympic level. In total they won five medals: two gold, two silver and one bronze. For the record, the very first gold medal (in Paris) was not even given to a club representing a single nation. Apparently a group of Danes and Swedes united in a multinational effort to defeat France for the top honor. I can hear them counting cadence now: "Uff da, uff da, uff da..."


One of the more interesting characteristics of tug-of-war as an Olympic competition was the fact that different clubs from the same country were allowed to compete. Because of this anomaly, the United States took gold, silver and bronze in the 1904 St. Louis games... the only time the country ever medaled in tug-of-war. (photo to left)


Thinking of the 1904 games, Frank X. Kugler, member of the bronze medal tug-of-war club, also won a silver medal in wrestling (heavyweight category) and a bronze medal in the all-around dumbbell events. Frank did this even though he took last place in 9 out of 10 events in the dumbbell competition... it would seem there were only three competitors in that particular sport in those games! 


To give credit where credit is due, Frank remains the only competitor to win a medal in three different sports at the same Olympic Games. If you allow me to mix my sporting allusions, now matter how poorly he did in dumbbells, he at least got up and answered the bell.


My guess is that all of us occasionally feel like we are in a tug-of-war.  Some times we feel like we are the rope and forces larger-than-ourselves are pulling on us from each side. As we get stretched, we feel the tightness and pain. On other occasions we feel like we are tugging on the rope and the team on the other side has us severely outnumbered. 


Max Gunther, the now deceased author of books and articles about finance, was fond of saying,  "If you are losing a tug-of-war with a tiger, give him the rope before he gets to your arm. You can always buy a new rope." There is a lot of truth in that. However, when it comes to certain bedrock principles we simply don't have the option to give up the rope. Whether the tiger gets us, or not, we cannot let go.


Sometimes, all we can do as Christians, or as plain-old-human-beings, is to imitate Frank Kugler and get up and answer the bell one more time.