The ‘Tragic Games’

By
R.Pathmarajah: The 1972 Munich Olympics Games will forever be remembered as the “Tragic Games”. The body count was 11 members of the Israel team. Germany had one casualty, a police officer. There were five more dead accounted for and they were members of the Palestinian terror group called Black September. The mass killing happened on September 5 and 6.
On the morning of the massacre we were going for breakfast when we were informed that the Games had come to a standstill. At our morning meeting later, we were told that the Games had been called off.
We were not allowed to leave the Games Village and at the same time the public was not allowed to come into the village. After getting this sad news, Brian Sta Maria, R. Rama Krishnan and I were walking along the perimeter fence of the Village when we were approached by a German journalist. I was wearing the Malaysian tracksuit top. He asked if I was willing to exchange my track top for his windcheater. He told us he needed to get into the village as he had something very urgent to do. Being naïve, I fell for it and made the exchange.
That night at our regular team meeting ,the Chef de Mission, Raja Azlan Shah asked who had given their tracksuit top to a German journalist. I owned up and he told me to make a report at the village police station.
Sieh Kok Chi, the Malaysian Olympic official, accompanied me to the police station to make the report. At the police station I was questioned and photographed. My tracksuit top was handed to me and I was asked to return the German journalist’s windcheater.
I returned it but on hindsight I shouldn’t have, as the windcheater was full of badges from the participating countries. It would have made a very good souvenir.