More Than Just Games

 

I enjoy the Olympics in general. But I’m just not qualified to watch some sports, like Big Air snowboarding. I can’t tell just by looking at the TV whether the athlete completed a 900 or a 1440, or whether they grabbed their boards properly in flight. It all went by so fast and had to be explained by expert commentators.

Then, of course, there is figure skating. I can’t skate five feet without falling on my rump, so the demonstration of incredible artistry by an Olympic competitor is other-worldly. But with all the effort that goes into an individual skating routine, why does it seem to be all about tricks? I need the commentators again to explain triple axels, toe loops, saichows, and quads, which also go by really fast, and you know, I don’t care who will be the first woman to perform a quint.

I don’t have much new to say about 15-year-old Russian skater Kamila Valieva and just who is to blame for her positive doping test. But is it just me, or was all the explicit live coverage of the reaction after her final disastrous performance on the ice almost intrusive? I guess we had to see it, but I was squirming.

And I don’t understand this whole Russian Olympic Committee business anyway. If the Russians were banned from the Olympics for a period because of doping, then it should have been a total ban, without this work-around.

Another thing I question is how athletes can choose to perform for countries other than their own. If you were born in the US and are therefore a citizen, have grown up here and continue to live here, you should be on the US team. Skier Eileen Gu has done wonderful work introducing her sport to young women in China, and she is an admirable human being. But she’s an American. Heck, she could be President someday. I wish those medals she won had been American and not Chinese.

I do agree with the notion that the Olympics should be politics-free. It’s not possible, of course, to completely disentangle politics from the event, but those ideological battles can and will be fought before and after the Games. The Olympics are actually a nice distraction, or can be, and in their own way, they help hold the world together.

There are many things about the Olympics that need attention , such as how host cities are selected, the way athletes are trained and whether there should be age limits,  and how critical decisions are made during competition, as in the case of Valieva. But now in their third century, the Games do have a place on our planet.