A short history of the grudge match: The Hebrews invented it. Cain was the first winner, but God disqualified him on the grounds of poor sportsmanship. Abel was awarded the gold posthumously.
A longer history of the grudge match: The ancient Greeks invented games as a way of allowing men to fight one another without all that messy killing. Sport was literally a lifesaving idea: I hit you, you hit me, and an impartial observer determines who wins. (This became known as boxing.) I insult you, you trip me and the rest of the clan decides who played dirty better. (This became known as politics.)
These Olympics, like those that preceded them, are conducted in the spirit of fair play and sportsmanship--at least until the competition starts. Everything was a grudge match in the cold war days, when, for the U.S., winning against the Russians and their vassals was a patriotic duty. Now it's much more complicated. Russia is pathetic. Nobody has it in for the Lithuanians--but one can learn.
From classical times to today--roughly, from Ben-Hur vs. Messala to the Rock vs. the Undertaker--grudge matches have spiced the playing and watching of sport. Badminton? Fiercely contested by the Chinese and the Danes. Volleyball? Watch out for that Cuba-Brazil match. Swimming? You should hear the trash talking. Basketball? Everyone would love to knock our block off. Man was not automatically civilized simply because he agreed to live, or play, by the rules. He did not abandon rancor, envy or the thirst for vengeance. Just watch any match between Yugoslavia and Croatia.
For every dispassionate contest pitting nature's noblemen against each other, there is, or ought to be, one in which a festering resentment sends a sick thrill through the arena. Why get mad? Because your rival got stupidly lucky. Because your rival took more effective drugs than you did. Because some friends of your rival clubbed you on the knee a month before the big skate. And maybe the real or imagined slight goads the grudging one to greatness. Revenge spurs nearly every movie plot; why shouldn't it juice the adrenaline that an athlete needs to excel?
An athlete, at least a smart one, does not say publicly, "I'm gonna kill him." Such a statement, circled in red Magic Marker and tacked to a locker-room bulletin board, can be as inspirational as a Gipper speech. So this year's Olympians will murmur only the mildest bromides. But some of them, in this Grudge Report, will quietly nurse their enmity to find a focus for their few moments in the quadrennial sun. The old Olympic rule applies: Get mad; get even.