“Olympics are never about reality. Forty years ago, in the real world, 11 coffins returned home for burial in Israel. In the Olympic world, the Games went on. Belgian Olympian yachtsman Jacques Rogge carried on sailing. Today he is yet another IOC president who refuses to mention the Munich massacre at the opening ceremony, preferring instead to hold on Monday an “impromptu” and “spontaneous” moment of silence, unannounced and tucked away in a distant corner of the Olympic village.

Mark Spitz, the greatest Jewish Olympian of all times, also stayed in Munich, winning seven gold medals in the swimming pool. Thirteen years later, he lit a torch along with three daughters of the Munich martyrs – but that was at the opening ceremony of the Maccabiah Games in Israel, a poor parallel world to the golden Olympic one. Today in east London the magical Olympic kingdom will open for 17 days. The Munich 11 will not be mentioned there – they belong to the real world.”

Read more…