I’ll start by saying that I once climbed halfway up Mt. Olympus in an epic day/night that started in a grove of fig trees, traversed mountain, beach, and highway, and ended in a Greek heavy metal bar. But that…contained very few feats of athleticism, unless you count the record-setting number of cups and plates I broke the next morning while trying to wash the dishes.
It feels gauche, or perhaps well beyond that, given the human rights violations, corruption, pollution, doping, and on and on, to still love the Olympics fervently, but I do. It may be that their destructive potential has caught up to or surpassed their potential for good, and I hope that in the future we’ll see a radical difference in approach…but in five days I will be watching the torch, Bob Costas, and the march of nations, and probably crying whenever the Olympic theme song plays, even though that usually heralds the advent of a commercial break.
The Olympics is the only time I watch swimming or track and field; tennis and gymnastics I watch whenever it’s possible. I tried to postulate the other day as to why it’s swimming and athletics that I find so suddenly, quadrennially compelling, but couldn’t really specify. It’s the racing, yes, but then I don’t have any interest in rowing. I’m not captivated by any of the team sports, unless they’re relays in swimming/track, which are “teams” but consist of only one athlete at a time.
It seems that now track and field is unquestionably the (Olympic) sport most marred by doping, which does cast a pall. We still have Usain Bolt and the memories of Michael Johnson (watching him round the corner in the final stretch of track, chest upright and gold shoes flashing), though, right? Gymnastics is probably the safest; steroids might in theory help gymnasts, but building too much muscle would be detrimental–in general, gymnastics is about balance, including the balance between strength and agility. What kind of drugs would even confer any benefit to a sport that is so dependent on precision? Beta blockers?
There’s a balance to be found in the human interest stories, too; I will vomit if I hear anything along the lines of John Tesh’s patronizing “Little girls dancing for gold” fluff intro, but please do give me the backstory on the people I’m about to watch accomplish ludicrous feats of athleticism, so I can be even more overcome when they win or lose.
I’ll never forget seeing a guy who was a year ahead of me at my small, suburban high school win silver in the hurdles in Beijing, then turn to the cameras during his victory lap and shout our area code (I’ll never forget it in part because I don’t think I’d ever heard anyone rep an area code before, certainly not a Cincinnati area code, and why area code and not zip code–just length? Why not shout out the 45215?)
Five days.
