Olympic Recap

Seeing the top athletes in the world compete is exciting and inspiring. Being in person, cheering on the players and the countries, and being part of the crowd is also exhilarating. I know many Parisians who opted out, but if you had a place to stay, it was a mistake to leave town.

Some activities, such as track and field, are easier to watch on TV. The field is so large, and there are so many happenings at once, and everyone is standing to see, which makes it hard to be part of anything except where you are sitting. Whereas basketball, which is probably why we love going to basketball games at home, I always feel part of the game, no matter where we sit.

We went for two weeks, and that is definitely not necessary. If we did it again, 4-5 days is plenty, although doing Paris is always good. The hardest part is the heat and that is never going away. Should these games be in June instead? Los Angeles is not going to be any cooler than Paris has been this year, if anything it might be warmer.

I have watched sports games my entire life. I enjoy sports, and was all in as a player when I was younger. The one thing that I have noticed at this Olympics, is there seems to be a healthier competition than there has been in the past. Regardless of winning or losing, competing teams and players support each other after the game is over in a way that I have not seen before. The conversation around mental health, how to process, how one feels, is part of the forefront. We did not see that a decade ago. Athletes did not share their angst. Hats off to Simone Biles who let that be ok, and athletes embraced that because they have all been there.

Perhaps it is also the anxiety we are seeing in the world, with dictatorship on the rise and wars that make zero sense, that at the Olympics, that can all go away. We can watch a North Korean diver high-five a Chinese diver or an athlete fall down and an athlete from a competing country help them up or literally pick them up and get them to the sidelines.

At track and field, we tried to talk to the Japanese family behind us, and neither of us understood each other, but we were all having fun. We may need to see more of this worldwide and more empathy as we embrace each other’s cultures without judgment. That feels good.