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Why the Summer Olympics are the greatest event in sports (and it's not even close)
This is it. After years of waiting, months of speculation, weeks of chatter and days of nervous, buildup energy, we've finally come to the moment that the world has been anticipating since that brisk fall day in Copenhagen seven years ago when the IOC determined that Rio de Janeiro would be the center of the universe in the summer of 2016. The Olympics are here. It's the most wonderful time of the (four) year(s).
I still believe in the Olympics. Scoff if you want; I understand. But despite the billion-dollar television deals, fleecing of host cities that spend six years and billions of dollars for 17 days then are left in disarray, the creeping professionalism and a see-no-evil approach to drug testing notwithstanding, I remain a follower of the vision of Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Games. I love the Olympics. I love the ideal they represent, even if that ideal isn't always conspicuous. The Games can be so many things to so many different people and, for that reason above all, it's the greatest event in sports.
Are they perfect? Far from it. But for all the dramatic hand-wringing we've seen for the past seven years, it'll all disappear once the cauldron gets lit on Friday night. The Games are always a controversy-riddled hot mess right up until they start. Then, the sports take over. It's the way of the news cycle. When there's nothing to talk about or going on, the cynicism kicks in. (The NFL is a prime example.) Then things get going and everybody forgets about it. Something has to fill all those column inches, links and TV time. Come Saturday, it won't be Zika or an ill-prepared nation. It'll be Michael Phelps, gold medals and the perseverance of the Olympic spirit.
Over 10,000 athletes from more than 200 countries will compete over the next two weeks. For most of them, sports are secondary. They don't harbor gold-medal aspirations or dream of becoming Michael Phelps 2.0. They've reached their goal. Competing at the Olympics is merely a bonus.
This is far from the only time in sports where simply making it is the achievement. Take the career minor leaguer who finally gets called to the bigs. The golfer who plays his way into the U.S. Open. The tennis coach who goes on a heater through qualifiers, makes it into the Wimbledon main draw, plays Roger Federer on Centre Court and then is back to playing doubles for his club team one night later. These are the stories we love. These are the stories that make sports so magical. This is why we watch.
It's Jesse Owens, a black American, befriending a fellow long jumper who was the ideal Aryan of Hitler's Germany. It's Rulon Gardner upsetting the immortal Alexander Karelin. It's Dan Jansen racing the day of his sister's death, falling and making the country cry along with him to a would-be fairy tale disrupted and immediately thrusting reality upon a broken man. It's Derek Redmond tearing his hamstring on the track and having his father carry him to the finish line. It's the Jamaican bobsled team. These triumphs of will are every bit as important as the triumphs of brilliance we see with Phelps, Ledecky, Bolt and Biles. They're every bit as watchable too.
This is not the preferred perspective, dude. The trend is to be too cool for the Olympics and write of doomsday scenarios. Forget 'em. They're cliched and overplayed. (And, actually, they haven't been nearly as bad this week as you might have expected.) There's absolutely nothing to report in the days leading up to the Games, so American journalists, used to being feted with buffets at ballparks, expense-card paid hotel rooms and at least a semblance of access to athletes, are naturally going to whine about how the water cooler is broken, the accommodations have two elevators that are broken, the toilet situation is weird, the mixed zone is packed and how there's - GASP - military personnel with guns roaming the streets. The prophecies, God forbid, may be right. But let's not confuse congested streets and gridlock traffic with actual, real-life Olympic tragedy, like the Georgian luger killed during a practice or the Centennial Park bombing, the last terrorist attack on the Games. (Be careful with that glass house, American media.)
Try as they might, reporters aren't the barometer for whether a Summer Olympics is successful. The Games will be remembered for iconic moments of the Opening Ceremony, unknown athletes breaking through to win gold, world famous athletes putting their records further out of reach and just the general camaraderie and happiness radiating from Rio. It's far from a perfect place, but it was flawed (like all major cities are) before the Games and it will be afterward. The biggest insult will be leaving the Olympics behind and forgetting about the impoverished citizens of Brazil.
With the Opening Ceremony 24 hours away, it's the time to focus on the positives of the Olympic movement and its character-driven sporting event. NBC is a biennial punching bag for their soft-focus human-interest stories, but they've been in the Olympic game long enough to know what sells. Most of the viewers aren't sports fans, because the primetime Olympic coverage isn't a sporting event as much as it's a TV show. There's nothing wrong with that. Bring on the soft, tinkling piano score and introspective Mary Carillo pieces. I'd rather know the story behind the fencer going for gold rather than rooting for a faceless stranger who happens to have a red, white and blue flag next to their name. Tape-delayed Opening Ceremony notwithstanding, NBC does an excellent job with the Games. There aren't enough hours in the day to watch all the coverage that will be on your TV over the next two weeks. Watch judiciously and look at Yelp reviews for local delivery places. It's important to plan ahead.
Of the 10,000+ athletes in Rio, maybe 3,000 harbor legitimate medal hopes. The rest are there having reached their sporting apex and get to celebrate by being VIPs at the biggest party on the planet. Setting a personal best and finishing as high as possible are surely goals, but the highlight for many will be walking through the gates of the Maracana and standing on the field as Thomas Bach welcomes athletes to the highlight of their sporting career and one of the greatest moments of their lives.
When those athletes tell their stories upon getting home - the first of hundreds of times they'll share the tale - they won't be talking about the feint that led to victory or their perfect takeoff on the jump. They won't be lamenting the missed opportunity to start their move in the velodrome or how they went out too fast in the race-walk. The stories will be about that moment and how they absorbed the cheers of 75,000 cheering Brazilians. They'll be about how they saw Usain Bolt eating at the Olympic village. They'll talk of the people from a half-a-world away they met, the stories they heard and how the world's biggest sporting event isn't really about sports at all.
Take Michael Phelps, for instance. History's greatest Olympian has never walked in an Opening Ceremony because swimmers start their competition hours later. This year, he'll be holding the (heavy) American flag. Winning gold and extending his record medal haul are the clear goals for this, his fifth Olympic experience, but even Phelps shows that there's more to the experience than touching the wall first.
As for viewers, there's something for everyone. Flip channels. Don't just watch basketball, golf or tennis. Spread your viewing wings. Realize table tennis isn't a joke, Olympic basketball is kind of boring, archery and shooting (when covered well, as NBC will do) can be fascinating and that no matter how absurd and contrived the sport, everybody there is one of the best in the world at what they're doing. Love handball.
When you do, you'll find yourself asking, "why do I care?" Why does watching the U.S. team in volleyball, a sport you haven't played since you used a beach ball on a four-foot net in third grade, make you nervous like you were watching your favorite NFL team in the divisional playoffs? Why do you learn about a fencer 15 minutes before her match and then cry when she's standing on the podium hearing The Star Spangled Banner 20 minutes later, like she's part of the family? Why? It's the power of the Olympics. Watching people who care so much about what they're doing is bound to make you care too. Compare that to, say, the early rounds of the NBA playoffs when apathy is practically creating a haze in the arena. We care because it matters. We care because national pride is on the line. We care because there are 206 weeks out of every four years not to care. The least we can do in those other two weeks is to give athletes who spend their whole lives training their due.
That's not to say professional players in America's Big Three sports don't care. They do (or most of them do). But if a season ends with a loss, those players have their palatial estates, six cars and trips to Ibiza to cope with the disappointment. The best will work hard in the offseason knowing that redemption is just one season away. (In the case of the NBA and NHL, you can lose a playoff series and literally wait a few weeks before the next season comes around.) The urgency is manufactured.
Not in the Olympics. Those men and women - the top tier, not the ones happy to be there and whose biggest goals are to get some pins, take some pictures and help do their part to make sure the voluminous prophylactic handouts weren't in vain - will have spent the previous 2,102,400 minutes living, eating, breathing and thinking about the two or three minutes they'll be in the pool or on the track. And then, after almost 1,500 days of waiting for that moment, the difference between eternal glory (a medal that will define them to their dying day) and a lifetime of regret might be the blink of an eye. Literally, the difference between 5th and a bronze medal can be that small. It's the greatest drama in sports. Come in second or fourth at the Olympics and you won't have a chance to right the wrong for four years or, like, 5 new iPhone launches. It's truly crushing. The Panthers lost the Super Bowl in February and are back in camp right now. Michael Phelps lost the 200 fly by 0.05 seconds back when Mitt Romney was running for president. Only next week will he get a chance at revenge on Chad Le Clos, the man who bested him.
For Phelps, gold is the only color that matters. For others, sneaking their way onto the podium to win bronze is the equivalent. It's the beauty of the Olympics. It means something different to everyone.
If sports were the first reality television, the Olympics are the best. Every night features the best athletes in the world competing for the highest honor in their sport. Every afternoon features other athletes who won't finish within shouting distance of the podium but will return home to hero's welcomes. The whole thing is beautiful.
The greatest fortnight in sports starts Saturday morning. Get ready. Be ready. And enjoy.
