On 26 January 1924, Charles Jewtraw won the first gold medal in the first winter Olympics.
Jewtraw, an American from Lake Placid (pictured above in photo posted by CNN), won the 500 meter short track speed skating race, in 44.0 seconds.
Chamonix, a French town in the shadow of Mont Blanc, hosted the 1924 Olympics. At the time, they were billed the Semaine internationale des sports d’hiver, acknowledged subsequently as the first Winter Olympics.
Anelka burger
French society is permeated by rules.
There are many rules. Most have exceptions or derogations. Many can be broken, often with seeming impunity. But some must never be sidestepped.
Drawing the line between rules that can be broken, and those that must be followed always, is an enduring source of confusion to me.
I was particularly confused by a dust-up in France’s World Cup fiasco, from which the French team was eliminated in the first round.
Hamburger as World Cup trophy
One player, Nicolas Anelka, by most accounts a gifted athlete (he plays with Chelsea) but also a hothead (at ease trash-talking back to coaches or team management), let loose in the locker room with some rough talk directed against Raymond Domenech, the French team’s manager. In short order, Anelka was relieved of further duties to the team, and sent home.
As reported, Anelka’s words sound to my ears much like dialog I’d expect in a Quentin Tarantino film.
But French ears seem to have heard something different. A line seems to have been crossed. Quick, a fast food chain, and Pringles, a potato chip brand of Procter & Gamble, pulled ads that featured Anelka.
I’m confused.
A few years ago, before he wed Carla Bruni, French president Sarkozy wound up in a spot that seemed much the same. The French president, frustrated by an unfriendly crowd, singled out one heckler and let loose with a comparable stream of nasty words. Everyone seemed to have agreed then that Sarkozy showed himself to be uncouth or unpolished; but this impetuous roughness around the edges was part of the conventional wisdom that everyone knew already. After a collective “tsk, tsk”, business went on as normal.
At the end of the last World Cup, in 2006, France competed against Italy. The match was tight, and tough. Towards the end of the game, French superstar Zinedine Zidane delivered a head butt to the chest of Italian superstar Marco Materazzi. Reportedly, Materazzi had provoked Zidane with taunting. In any case, Zidane was promptly sanctioned with a red card, and sent back to the locker room. Despite striking another player during a game –violating the game’s rules and sportsmanship– Zidane’s fortunes did not suffer. Then-president Chirac said he “understood” Zidane’s act, and the French public bore him no grudges. Zidane is, today, a pitchman much in view.
What, exactly, makes Anelka’s situation so different from Sarkozy’s or Zidane’s?
Now that the French national team failed to defeat the South African team by more than five goals, I’d like to share three management lessons the French team taught me:
Don’t count on magic
Fans will tell you: the French team’s performance has been mediocre or disappointing, ever since the 2006 World Cup (when Zinedine Zidane bid adieu to the field with a head butt to an adversary).
The team qualified for the 2010 World Cup thanks to rules changes (that enlarged the pool of contenders) and contestable refereeing (in a qualification victory over Ireland, where officials missed apparent off-side play or the decisive role played by Thierry Henry’s hand).
Whether from hubris or blindness, the French team acted as if it had a place and a prospect in the 2010 World Cup, when it did not. Fans and commentators spun all sorts of stories about how the team would “gel” or “awaken” or “come into its own”. This didn’t happen.
In business as in sport, don’t count on magic.
Communication never stops
An enduring foreign stereotype holds French people out to be haughty, arrogant, and vain.
The behavior of the French team, especially in South Africa, illustrated this stereotype well.
The team spent most of their time in South Africa barricaded in a luxury compound, a five-star hotel rented out for the occasion, complete with its own training field.
The press and fans were not invited; South African police kept them far away.
The message clear sent: indifference, even disdain.
The members of the French team are football professionals. Their technical skills are beyond reproach. They are accustomed to being in the public light. They are used to being part of a team. Part of their job is to show enthusiasm for their work –which many fans experience, vicariously, as play– and to acknowledge that their sportsmanship is worth watching.
This can’t happen if the team is sequestered.
French junior minister for sport Rama Yade –energetic, young, female, black– questioned whether it was really in the team’s best interest to spend so much money on splendid isolation is South Africa. Simply asking the question provoked the team’s anger and a retort about the cost of Rade’s own South African room. These guys really couldn’t take a friendly hint.
The team became even more prickly and aloof when one player’s reported locker-room comments snowballed into a national scandal.
The message was clear: this team preferred to be left alone, out of sight. This is a problem if you’re wearing the national colors.
It’s silly never to acknowledge mistakes
Raymond Domenech, the French team’s manager, makes a fine case study of a bad French habit: never admitting a mistake or misstep, no matter how inconsequential.
Domenech’s mistakes arguably were many. When interviewed, he said as much, then refused to tell the public what those mistakes might have been: “that’s for me”.
Did this make Domenech noble, or brave, or stoic? No, in the eyes of French fans he only looked small. On his better days, he looked like a man marching to the gallows.
The 2010 World Cup starts next month, but French supporters already have a theme song: “Bleu Blanc Rouge”, by François Le Français and Doudou, otherwise known as Omar and Fred.
Omar Sy and Fred Testo are comedians who work as a duo. They specialize in short sketches, often with recurring themes or characters. Their material touches on social or political commentary; it often plays with stereotypes and features double-entendres.
In what seems to be an initial foray into music, Omar and Fred/François Le Français and Doudou have put together an over-the-top pop pep song for the French national team. The lyrics are stunningly simple and repetitive. Rugby star Sébastien Chabal makes a guest appearance. The singers propose a silly World Cup dance. The song is studiously unserious: in their video, the comedians spend about half the song wearing costumes from the Teletubbies children’s series. This being France, there’s a political undercurrent: the song derides Sarkozyian hyper-patriotism as fans produce their French national identity cards.
“Bleu Blanc Rouge” has been on the Web for about a month, and has gained traction. French people know the song, and sing it.
