Yesterday, Mr. P and I indulged in a marathon of Olympics viewing, hunkered down in our living room as thunderstorms raged outside. The guilt-laced pleasure of devoting nearly eight hours to televised sports was palpable. It was not even Thanksgiving. By hour four, my ad-saturated brain had managed to convince me that watching as much of the Olympics as possible was not only a justifiable use of my day, but my patriotic duty. And who knows? Maybe I really did need to buy a Toyota Tundra.
NBC’s cunning marketing did not need to work very hard to reel me in. I have always been an Olympics enthusiast. There is something captivating about seeing nations come together, competing fiercely yet united on a shared global stage. Pierre de Coubertin, the French visionary behind the modern Olympics in 1900, dreamed of using athletic competition to foster peace, believing that the youth of the world could compete in sports rather than engage in war. It is an idealistic thought. No geopolitical crisis has ever been resolved by synchronized diving. Still, I live by Coubertin’s sentiment, considering beach volleyball a perfectly reasonable stand-in for global conflict.
I love the Olympic events that stray from the typical American diet of spectator sports involving ball-handling, ball-whacking, and or stock cars. I love hearing coworkers lament their lack of sleep because they stayed up late to watch a swim meet. The Olympics heighten the drama of every sport they touch. Take women’s gymnastics, which is always a crowd pleaser. During the Olympics, however, the stakes add an exquisiteness to the tension. Who does not love watching those crestfallen, muscle-wracked little girls after a lifetime of fanatical work is undone by a hop and a wobble on the landing?
The Olympics awaken the fervent patriotism of my childhood. My most vivid Olympic memory comes from the 1988 Calgary Winter Games, when American Debi Thomas faced off against East German Katarina Witt in women’s figure skating. I can still hear Thomas’s coach delivering a final pep talk before her decisive long program: “You can do this. You can do anything. You’re an American.” Thomas faltered and finished with the bronze, and I learned that the spectator’s agony of defeat is laced with helplessness. It was then that I swore a silent enmity toward Katarina Witt and, by extension, East Germany itself. Because in my young eyes, figure skating was war.
