There are 205 nations with athletes
competing in this year’s Olympic Games. In trials and rivalries ranging from individual
competitions to team events, the world comes together to compete — honorably
and respectfully. The Olympics give us those incredible moments when people
around the world cheer together, putting aside geopolitical differences even if
only for a few minutes (or for mere nano-seconds at the finish line) to
complete contest after contest, awarding medal after medal.
The first Olympic Games date back to
776 BC. According to...
the official Olympics website, while the games began in
ancient Greece as part of a religious festival to honor Zeus, the greater
purpose was “to show the physical qualities and evolution of the performances
accomplished by young people, as well as encouraging good relations between the
cities of Greece.”
But it wasn’t until the late 1800s
that the modern international Olympic Games came into being, thanks to French
Baron Pierre de Coubertin. This writer and educator saw a great need for sport
in the education process and rallied the necessary support to make it a
reality. He believed, deeply, that sport “is an amazing tool which helps to
build a better world.” And it’s true that in those minutes (and final nano-seconds)
of friendly competition, we see proof of a better world, a more civilized
world.
The first modern Olympic Games were
held in Athens, Greece, in 1896. The Torch Relay symbolically connects the
ancient and modern Olympics. The Olympic motto “citius, altius, fortius” is
Latin for “faster, higher, stronger.” I like that. There is no insult and no
tragedy to be found in those words.
I see the Olympics as a reassurance of
sorts that there is a counter-harmonic to the cruelty and disregard our species
seems all-too-easily capable of — tendencies and incidents that so often
dominate broadcasts and headlines.
An editorial in the Daily Sentinel a
few weeks ago asserted that “for some people, these Olympic games have not
generated the same sort of enthusiasm that previous contests have. There’s not
the same eagerness to watch the competition unfold.” I sure hope that’s not the
case, but with all the behind-the-scenes challenges detailed in that editorial,
maybe it is.
I’m not so naive as to assume that
everyone shares my passion for the Olympics. We are definitely not a homogeneous,
one-size-fits-all species, we humans.
There could be an Olympics for just
about everything, as far as I’m concerned. Welding. Cooking. Cement pouring.
Sewing. Job creation. Tire changing. People helping people.
Selfishly, I guess I need the Olympics
and their idealistic moments of friendly competition — to share in and
celebrate the amazing, beautiful, simple, honorable, intriguing, awe-inspiring
capabilities of being human. These qualities flourish right here at home too,
right here in Western Colorado; they’re real and accessible despite the
hardships and challenges of our time and place.
We don’t need to be trained athletes
to behold the Colorado National Monument’s red cliff faces bathed in the late
afternoon light or iconic Mount Garfield sparkling with fresh snow on a sunny
winter morning or the carefree laughter of a curious child. We don’t need to be
Olympians to go “faster, higher, stronger” in even the simplest of tasks in our
daily lives.
Thank you to all the athletes and to
everyone who makes possible the Olympic Games; thank you for inspiring us with
these extraordinary moments of world peace. Godspeed.
This
post is excerpted from my weekly column in the Daily Sentinel as published in
the Sunday, July 29, 2012, edition of the newspaper.
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