More than Just Games is the title of an exhibition being prepared for the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre on Canada and the Olympics in Germany in 1936. The exhibit is set to open in Vancouver in fall 2009 and will stay through the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
The exhibit will feature the accolades and works of Canadian Olympian, Eva Dawes, who won bronze for Canada in the high jump at the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles. She boycotted the 1936 Olympic Games in Nazi Germany. Dawes tried to attend the counter-Olympic Games in Barcelona that same year, until the war forced her away.
Dawes had passed away on May 30, 2009 at the age of 96 in the London, England.
The Globe and Mail obituary notes that, “Over the years she (Dawes) corresponded with several writers, including Mr. (Ron) Hotchkiss, expressing her disillusionment with the modern Olympics, which she felt belonged no longer to amateurs striving for personal bests from love of country.”
“When he asked her if she was excited about the prospect of having the Summer Games in London in 2012, she wrote back: ‘I’ve lost interest now. It is all for the money and not for fun as we knew it in 1932.”
The title, More Than Just Games also encapsulates a sentiment felt by many that the present-day Olympics have become less about the spirit of sport and athletes, but more about an “Olympic industry” focused on broadcast rights, real estate and massive corporate marketing opportunities.
Today (June 23) marks the 115th anniversary of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The event will barely be celebrated in Vancouver or Whistler, unless you count the Samsung 2010 Winter Games marketing launch with Wayne Gretzky, Jarome Iginla, and Hayley Wickenheiser at the Westin Bayshore.
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