I love the Olympics.
The romantic sports fan in me still believes in the Olympic ideal—the concept that this competition is a way to bring the world together in a way that no one or nothing else can do.
Political stances take a back seat to the competitors, although worldwide events have once again created rivalries that didn’t exist before in international competition.
Kids from all over the world, from big towns and small ones, from countries you may not have ever heard of before, together in the same place at the same time challenging each other to be their best on the biggest stage in the world and reaping the reward of their years of hard work and discipline.
It’s 17 days of seeing events we don’t see very often like judo, team handball, and rowing.
It’s thousands of young people who are at the Olympics—each with a story to be told about how they made it to Paris and what they had to overcome to make their Olympic moment a reality.
And for the rest of us—the normal weekend golfer who likes to play cornhole at family gatherings and likes to swim for fun on hot days—we enjoy watching them do their thing. Oh, sure, we generally cheer for the Americans. But maybe you have strong connections to your heritage and will pay special attention to the Greeks Italians, Brits or (especially at my house) the Chinese—that’s fine too. It’s the Olympics…you can do that!
And many of us sat down in front of our televisions ready to watch the tradition of the opening ceremonies unfold last Friday evening.
Now, we knew going into last Friday that some of those traditions would be “bent” this time. Every host country puts a lot of “local flare” in their opening ceremony, and that’s part of the fun of it.
For example, having the parade of athletes happen with the use of boats weaving through Paris on the Seine River was different, but it worked for us, and it was fitting of the city.
But there were parts of that night and that ceremony that were galling and disgusting.
You either saw it live or you have heard what was portrayed there, and I choose not to go into details of it, except to say that I am really glad my kids had gone to bed so I didn’t have to explain how any of that was part of the Olympics.
It was shameful, pointless and had no place in the grandeur of the Olympic Games.
But here’s the good news: the competitions are lifting us out of the ditch that the opening ceremony left us in.
We are falling in love with the Olympics all over again.
I will tell you that the men’s basketball tournament is not really on my radar. I really don’t care much about them. The women’s team hits me the same way, but to a lesser extent.
I hope the Americans win, but I am not going to spend much time watching them.
I want to devote my time to Simone Biles and the gymnastics team.
I want to spend time watching riders take their horse over shrubbery, men and women spin and throw a heavy, metal object as far as they can, and sprinters running like they have been shot out of the starter’s pistol.
Show me stuff that I don’t understand, like how a human being can tread water and then throw a ball past a goalie into a floating net while having other humans treading water and hanging all over them…and do that for about 45 minutes.
Show me how to swim the length of the pool and back in under 55 seconds.
Show me what it’s like to lift more than your own body weight over your head and hold it there.
I understand that there are more world competitions now than ever before. That could take a little bit of the luster off this one.
Except this is the Olympic games.
The closest I can come to finding a parallel is golf.
There are four “majors” each year, but would anyone argue that winning The Masters means more than the others?
Of course it does.
So, let’s all enjoy these games.
Let’s all appreciate what is taking place.
Let’s enjoy the dedication of the athletes.
Let’s celebrate an event where we can focus on who is winning medals and not who is running our country now and who will be running it later (there will be plenty of time for that later).
And let’s forget about the travesty of the opening night and hope it never happens again.