ABSTRACT
I n the quiet before dusk, high on a deserted valley between two mountain ridges, where the greens and sepias were turning into blues and violets to the sound of a burbling stream, there was a distant movement. I peered closer and made out three young men, who were silently practising the
karate reverse foot drop-kick. Was this the significance of the modem Olympic Latin motto, citius, altius, fortius, meaning 'faster, higher, stronger,' painted on the Spartak gym wall in Makhachkala?
