Rector’s eNews26: 27 August 2025

Watching our boys participate on the athletics track last Wednesday reminded me of the importance of keeping the Olympic spirit alive in all of our sporting encounters, even in rugby! A successful athletics competition, held over three afternoons, saw our Houses compete in a purposeful and spirited way in the best Olympian tradition of giving of one’s best but appreciating the best in others.

As most will know, the Summer Olympic Games takes place every four years with the Winter Olympics held separately since 1994 in the intervening years, two years after each of the Summer Olympics. A form of Games, attracting the best athletes who were able to travel to a particular venue was held from the 8^th century B.C. through to the 4^th century A.D. in Greece and this was revived in 1896, the year of the foundation of Michaelhouse, by a Frenchman, Pierre de Courbautin to promote individual excellence, friendships and respect in an atmosphere of fair play and to celebrate mastery in a particular discipline. It was hoped that fraternity, generosity of spirit and a sharing of common purpose would lead to international understanding and promote peace. Originally, the Olympic Games was for amateur athletes but soon professional athletes were allowed to compete. The positive values espoused by the founders and organisers were not, however, always evident. For example, the Berlin Olympics of 1936 were infamous for Hitler’s refusal to shake the hand of Jesse Owens, the gold medallist in four events because of the Führer’s belief in Aryan superiority. The Munich Olympics of 1972 saw a terrorist attack by the Palestinian militant group, Black September, on Israeli athletes, leading to the death of eleven of the Israeli team.

At my previous school in the United Kingdom, one of our staff, Christina Boxer, who ran in the 1500 metres in Moscow in 1980, Los Angeles in 1984 and Seoul in 1988, was beaten in the last of these by a Russian athlete for third place and, thus, denied a bronze medal. Some weeks later, it was established that the Russian athlete had taken performance enhancing drugs which led to her being stripped of her medal. The sadness is that Christina never attained a medal for which she had trained relentlessly over many years, overcoming many personal difficulties en route to Seoul.

Since 1896, the Olympic Games has only been cancelled three times, in 1916, 1940 and 1944, for obvious reasons. But there was also limited participation in the Cold War years of 1980 and 1984 and it is to be hoped that the next Games, to be held in Los Angeles in 2028 and in Brisbane in 2032, will not be plagued by international hostilities. The Paralympics began in 1988 with the Seoul Olympic Games and similarly extremely worthwhile events have taken root in many other sports, including tennis at Wimbledon where, increasingly, disabled tennis players have competed on the courts more favoured by spectators.

The last Michaelhouse Olympian gold medallist was Jean van der Westhuyzen, who left Michaelhouse in 2017 and represented Australia in the kayaking section of the 2020 Olympic Games, achieving a gold medal in the K2 1000m event, as well as a bronze medal in the 2024 Olympic Games in the K2 500m event. His brother, Pierre, achieved a silver in 2024.

In any event, the Olympic spirit was alive and well at Michaelhouse last week and there was little difference, ultimately, between the 10 Houses with Farfield ousting East and the other 8 Houses to record an overall victory.

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