Olympics so much more than athletics
When we look back on this month’s Rio Olympics, we must consider just one question, have we not been entertained?
|||Rio de Janeiro – “The real Olympics begin now,” one said. “Yep. The real athletes that we came to see,” said the mate.
As one-eyed conversations go, it is right up there with the musings Donald Trump must have with his mirror each morning.
It is disrespectful, irresponsible and desperately misinformed to consider “only the athletics” as real Olympic sports.
Never mind the records that have tumbled elsewhere, in gymnastics, rowing, weightlifting or judo.
Forget the compelling tales of valour, victory and verve that have lit up the city of Rio over the past eight days.
Let’s wipe away the history that has been made in the pool, where the most decorated Olympian, as well as legends from Australia, America, Hungary, Sweden, South Africa, Britain, Singapore and many other corners of the world, have soared to new heights, shall we?
If anything, these silly sentiments of selective modern viewing are historically misplaced, because the “original” Olympics comprised of a single race, a foot race between male athletes, that was over before the rocks had ignited to light the ceremonial flame.
Imagine if the modern Olympics were narrowed down to just the track and field.
The celebration of human spirit, of lithe and large, of fast and strong, of brave and brazen, would be lost.
The ground-breaking stories of ethnic boundaries and social myths being shattered by the hammering pursuit for equal opportunity and mutual respect would no longer be heard or, more importantly, told and shared with future generations.
The courage of the Kazakhstan rower, whose boat capsized at the start, but he still got back in and finished what he started years ago, would go unseen and unfelt.
The incredible sights of a hijab on the beach volleyball park, or beneath a fencing mask, are supposedly without relevance.
The respect of Fiji, to a man kneeling to accept their Sevens gold medals, and the timeless relevance of Michael Phelps coming back to correct his legacy, all of that rich heritage would be naught, according to those who only see athletics as the real Olympics.
Raucous Rio would have been silent for the past week, then, as we waited for the track and field to get under way.
To even contemplate such a thought is heartless and disrespectful to the thousands of athletes who have already become Olympians for the first, third or fifth time in 2016.
Yes, tonight will be the blockbuster when Usain Bolt gives us the 10 most anticipated seconds in each Olympiad. But to be brutally honest, to covet the 100m men’s final is to reduce the epic Gladiator film to one scene and forget the gripping build-up to the climax.
When we look back on all of this in a month, or a year, or whenever we recover our collective breath and see what extraordinary feats came before the showpiece, we must consider just one question, have we not been entertained?
– The Sunday Independent