Athlete’s return to Germany is a metaphor for victory over darkness

On Saturday we were reporting on the success of Mary Peters at the 1972 Olympics.

She brought a gold medal back from Munich to Northern Ireland at the most violent period of 1972 (the summer) in the most violent year of the near 30 years of the Troubles.

It was a moment of sporting triumph that brought joy to a country racked by terrorist violence.

Days after her victory, Munich itself was hit by terrorism when Palestinian terrorists killed Israeli athletes, then took others hostage, and set in motion a tragedy in which 11 members of the Israel team were murdered.

It was, as Shaul Ladany says on page 15 today, a moment that shattered the innocence of the Olympics.

The games had previously been tainted by global politics and tensions, as is inevitable given that there are always conflicts in parts of the world. Hitler had for example used the 1936 Berlin games for propaganda, and had reacted furiously to the black American victor Jesse Owens shattering his racist hopes for Aryan glory at the competition.

But the Munich attack was a shocking assault on sports competitors, on the simple pleasure of world-class athletic events, and on the very notion of honest sporting participation. It was also a symbolic attack by Palestinian terrorists on Israel, which in its short post-war history had already by 1972 survived existential threats from war with Arab neighbours.

The Olympic assault was a foretaste of later terrorism that has meant that major events, be they sports of entertainment, always now need significant security.

Mr Ladany had survived as a boy the Belsen concentration camp. Then, as an Israeli athlete, he survived the massacre at Munich — ironically taking place in a country that had by then already begun to reject entirely its recent Nazi past.

It is moving to see pictures of Mr Ladany back in Germany, where today he will attend a memorial to the massacre. His survival is a metaphor for defeat of the forces of darkness.