Runners and swimmers and soccer – oh my!

 

Every four years I can get excited about beach volleyball, badminton, weight lifting and swimming. Heck, I can even stand up and cheer for the world-class athletes taking part in synchronized swimming, gymnastics, boxing, wrestling, archery and the dozens of track and field events that define speed, endurance and skill!

All I need do to have a really grand time is push aside the politics, egos and nationalism that hover at the heart of the Olympics and focus on the athletes and their hopes, dreams and mighty efforts to win a gold medal. When it all comes together, there aren’t many other sporting events that capture the drama, excitement and sheer spectacle offered up by this quadrennial event.

I spent the last week or so lost in the whirling and swirling efforts of our women gymnasts and synchronized divers; dashing about with our sprinters and long-distance runners; holding my breath with the U.S. swimmers. There was much that was golden, nicely blended with silver, bronze and a sprinkling of tears.

I also journeyed along with Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings as they battled their way through the sand at the House Guards Parade, site of the beach volleyball competition. They dominated the field of world-class competitors, losing only one game (not a match, but a game) before facing the other U.S. team in the gold-medal finals of the event. Did I mention they were all wearing bikinis?

The U.S. - China match leading up to the finals was as dramatic and exciting as any sporting event I’ve ever witnessed. Four competitors, one ball, a few thousands screaming fans surrounding the court and a few million others watching the action on the tube! I did mention the bikini thing, right?

It was all captured on video tape by NBC and offered up in prime time across the U.S., hours after the actual game. NBC has paid a gazillion bucks for the rights to televise the Olympics and it’s their call on how best to handle the logistics. Unfortunately, unless you’re free to spend hours in front of a TV, or hours more surfing the web, what you’ll end up with each evening is a highlights reel of events!

The world these days moves along at warp speed, but all that high-tech power hasn’t yet dramatically changed the way we watch the Olympics. Go figure! Meanwhile, I’ve got a seat reserved in my den for the men’s marathon on Sunday, followed by the closing ceremony.  In honor of our beach volleyball champs, the lovely Miss Wendy and I will be wearing bikinis!

What it means to reach for gold at the Olympics

Blogger’s note: I came across this essay I wrote for that place with the printing press where I was working when the Olympics played out in the Land of Cotton 16 years ago. I’m thinking what I had to say then remains true today.

Winners and losers. It’s at the heart of the Olympics, the stuff of Olympian dreams and nightmares.
We remember the glow of gold medal winners, arms extended in victory. But just as compelling, just as memorable are the tears of those who valiantly tried, but came up short.

For those who prevail, dreams of a lifetime become reality. Cheers. Headlines. Fame. A golden medal.

But for every winner in the Olympics there are legions of losers, those who have fallen short of their goal.

“There’s evidence people remember, and it can ruin lives,” said Dr. Roy Baumesiter, a psychologist at Case Western Reserve University who specializes in the study of guilt. He noted that Albel Kiviat, who won the silver medal in Stockholm in 1912, was still regretting when he was 91 that he’d come in second, not first.

“I wake up sometimes and say, ‘What the heck happened to me?’ It’s like a nightmare.’’

Dr. Tom Gilovich, a Cornell University psychologist who did a study last year of Olympic athletes in the ’92 Games, found that those who finished second felt worse than men and women who finished third, or lower.

‘’Whatever joy the silver medalist may feel is often tempered by tortuous thoughts of what might have been had she only lengthened her stride, adjusted her breathing, pointed her toes and so on,’’ Gilovich said.

For the also-rans the cheers are hushed, the headlines bitter, fame elusive. For them there’s no golden medal to caress, to help remember a day, a moment, an instant when glory was there for the taking.

And yet … isn’t there also glory in the effort? Isn’t there fame for being one of the best in the world, an Olympian among Olympians?

Won’t the tears of defeat slowly give way to pride, knowing that there was a day, an hour, a moment when the world stood still … and waited?

The Olympic Games represent the noblest characteristics of mankind; but, sadly, also the worst. At the Centennial Games of Atlanta, marred by unspeakable tragedy, the good has nudged out the bad in a photo-finish.

And what of the winners and losers? For most of us, they remain the stuff of dreams, a lovely blend of Olympian beauty, grace and joy.

Logo lunacy! Zionist plot or anti-semitic rant?

Take a close look at the logo here. At first glance, other than being just plan ugly and a really good example of bad marketing, there’s little to say, right? Au contraire!

The bloated, zig-zaggy icon is the logo for the 2012 Olympics in London. It’s been roundly panned by art critics, Olympic officials, Brits of all stripes and now me! If you squint your eyes or twist your head in just the right way, you might be able to make out that it’s some sort of pop representation of the coming year – 2012!

Those of us living in the Land of Cotton during the ’96 Olympics know how weird things can get during the planning process. Game organizers, for whatever reasons, often end up pushing the creative envelope, producing dreadful icons and images to market and promote the mega-event.

Remember Izzy – short for Whatizit – the ill-conceived and universally criticized mascot of the Atlanta Games? Even after it was tweaked, Izzy remained an abomination – a nerdy, bluish cartoon character that appealed to absolutely no one. Okay, there was that one toddler from Uzbekistan that found Izzy charming!

The London logo has been in the news recently, not because it’s just plain ugly, but because of the politics of a very weird nation – Iran. Some of the members of Iran’s National Olympic Committee have been squinting just a little too hard when checking out the logo and think it resembles the world “Zion”.

Bahram Afsharzadeh, the secretary-general of Iran’s Olympic Committee has fired off a letter to IOC president Jacques Rogge, condemning the logo as “racist” and calling upon other Muslim countries to also protest the design. After all, Zion equals Israel and we all know how these progressive countries feel about the one true democracy in the Middle East.

I imagine, if you work really hard, reading the logo vertically and twisting it about, you can sort of find “Zion” buried in the awkward, bulky design. What I really think is going on, however, is Afsharzadeh and his friends have managed to turn the logo into a Rorschach test of sorts and, predictably, are projecting their paranoid fears on a benign design.

Iran, meanwhile, is threatening to boycott the London Games. The IOC has rejected the complaint. Hopefully that means Iran will, ah, screw its courage to the sticking place and hold true to its plan to pass on the 2012 Games.

If so, the Zionist conspiracy that really was no conspiracy at all will result in the London Games becoming an Iran-free zone. Mazel Tov! Sounds like a fantastic result that most of us can applaud and support.