Why You Should Watch The Olympics

The Olympics are not about China, nor for that matter the US, Russian, Georgia, or Iraq. True, we try to turn them into all that, and describe participating athletes as “representatives” of the nations that send them. Ideally, however, the Olympics transcend politics, and are better viewed as a showcase for individual talent, determination, and initiative, despite the fact that, ironically, most Olympic athletes, as a rule, see their own selves as representatives of their particular nations, and are inspired by that concept to represent their country to the best of their abilities. Of course, we don't tune in to hear the national anthems or for national history lessons, do we?

I personally don’t care that much which “nation” wins an event. Okay, if an American athlete wins the gold, sure, that’s great. Even in that case, however, the most important thing to me is the athlete and his or her own individual story of success and triumph, oftentimes in the face of adversity. The nation of origin is irrelevant.

I am inspired by the man who might set a new record for gold medals in swimming. His coach, the former great Olympian Mark Spitz, won seven. He might win eight.

I am inspired by the 39 year old mother who is set to compete in the women's swim team after an eight year absence.

Both of these athletes are Americans, but their stories would be no less inspiring were they Zimbabweans or Venezuelans.

I am not impressed by calls to boycott the Olympics based on China’s atrocious human rights record. If you go along with that, then you are actually giving the Chinese what they want. You are, in effect, making the Olympics not about the talented, hard working individual athletes who put their talent, their blood, sweat, and tears into their efforts, but instead you are joining China in making the Olympics all about China.

I feel the same way over Carter’s past boycott of the Moscow Olympics over mainly their invasion of Afghanistan. In reality, there were more valid reasons to boycott the Olympics at that time, reasons that predate that particular episode of history. Russia’s alleged penchant for cheating and bribing judges, if true, is one example. There is also the very obvious and proven fact that the Soviet Union actually funded and trained athletes that were not amateurs, as the rules at that time called for, but professional level athletes.

These may or may not have been valid reasons to boycott not only the Moscow Olympics, but any Olympics in which the Soviets, and for that matter most Soviet bloc countries, were participants. The Soviets’ invasion of Afghanistan was not a valid reason. People that insist it was, or that China's human rights record is a valid reason to boycott them now, do not seem to understand the concept behind the Olympics. If every nation in the world acted in a way deemed appropriate, and everybody got along, the Olympics would just be another international event. They were in fact originated to foster international understanding, on the grounds that this might lead in time to increased dialogue, contact and, eventually, greater international cooperation.

The original Olympics held in ancient Greece were of course the inspiration for this concept. Every four years, all of the various Greek city-states would send athletes to participate in a series of competitions. It was as much a religious event as anything. Zeus, Hermes, Heracles, and Apollo were considered sacred patrons of the games. In these far less civilized times, men actually died competing in some of these events, particularly the grueling and comparatively brutal boxing and wrestling competitions. It was, in a sense, an evolution of the concept of human sacrifice, much as the Roman gladiatorial contests that came a few centuries later.

Not only did the ancient Greeks consider the games sacred, participation was all but mandatory, even during times of war. City-states actually put their hostilities on hold in order to attend these events. The last event was a race in which contestants ran in full body armor, which signaled the end of the games and a return to normalcy-meaning whatever war might be taking place at the time could take up where it left off.

I am sure there is a lot of things that happened back then we could never hope to know about with any degree of certainty. I have no doubt that, despite the outwardly religious nature of the events, spies from the various city-states attended the games with the intention of gathering information, doubtless even paying for the inside knowledge they might gain. They might well have employed temple prostitutes to this end.

The Greek city-states were not all peaceful, freedom loving entities-if in fact any of them were. Some of these places were quite repressive. Sparta is the most obvious example. Though their republic was hailed in its day as an example to aspire to insofar as the rights of Spartan citizens were concerned, the way they treated the Helots, a non-Spartan ethnic group who lived in their area, would have made a tried-and-true Nazi prison guard blush. The Helots were actually the majority population and outnumbered the Spartans by at least ten-to-one, making Sparta one of the worlds first and certainly in its time the greatest apartheid nation.

They were a menace to the peace and prosperity of the Greek city-states in general. Yet, no one ever entertained the notion of boycotting the Olympics as a protest against Spartan atrocities or their unjust policies. They attended the games as a sacred duty.

Of course, there is no such sacred duty to attend these modern Olympics, but there is at the same time no true rationale for boycotting them based on a dislike of the policies of a participating nation-even if that particular nation happens to be the host nation. We might quibble as to how it came about that the IOC granted them this signal honor, and we might well disapprove of the IOC’s actions and policies in a good many other instances as well.

On the other hand, this is the best time to put politics aside. Screw the countries and the politicians. Let’s enjoy the games, and honor those who in good faith push the limits of human endurance in displaying their talents and training. They are the inspiration as to what human beings can achieve. Politicians and the interest groups that call for these boycotts are inspirations for nothing but tearing down what the rest of us dream and aspire to build. Don’t give them the satisfaction.

Some people criticize Bush for attending, some rather loudly. I see no problem with Bush attending the games. Who knows, maybe Clinton is there somewhere around Beijing, participating in the world class Bedroom Pole Vault event. The bottom line is, China is probably going to be the economic, political, and military heavyweight of the 21st century. Boycotting the Olympics will not change that prospect one iota. The most it would accomplish is drive a bigger wedge of hostility between them and their detractors, which would be ill-advised and unnecessary.

I earlier watched a volleyball match between the Americans and the Latvians. The Americans were seeded number two out of a group of twenty-eight participants. The Latvians were number twenty-seven. The Latvians beat the Americans in what amounted to a staggering upset. Second from last beats the number two seed. You don’t see that every day. One of the Americans, a young man named Dolhauser, was a former would-be tennis player who was convinced with no small effort to take up volleyball.

One of the Latvians was a former would-be basketball player who was convinced to take up volleyball.

Although I watched this today, I think it was taped, and might have occurred prior to the murder of an American by a deranged man who went on to commit suicide. The man and his wife, who was also seriously injured, were connected to the women’s volleyball team. I think their daughter is one of the team members, and the coach of the men's team was, I think, an in-law of the murdered man.

I am wondering if the assailant might have lost his home in the course of construction for the event. The only thing the Chinese are saying is that the man was homeless. If so, that is certainly a black mark on the Chinese. The man should have been compensated, assuming this was the case, and this is an example of how the international community can step in and demand that appropriate steps be taken in the course of future such events to insure fair compensation.

Yes, things can always be better than what they are, and the IOC can and should do a much better job in demanding accountability from host countries in return for the privilege of hosting these events. Otherwise, it is not just the host country that suffers, but the whole concept of the Olympics and what they are supposed to stand for suffers a black eye.

Nevertheless, if you are a sports fan, at least, you owe it to yourself to watch these Olympics, not for the sake of the countries and their so-called leaders, but to draw inspiration from the actual human beings that take part in them. They are the real stories. The countries and their political intrigues and drama are mere window dressing.

In real life, they are unfortunately necessary to at least a point, and I have no doubt they always will be. The Olympics was, as I said at the beginning, originally conceived to encourage greater international cooperation among nations. I think at this stage, however, the Olympics can make a greater contribution by striving to transcend such pretensions.