![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the olympics
Jan. 31st, 2014 09:44 pmOne of the most profoundly disappointing things about adulthood has to be realizing how corrupt, fucked up and genuinely disheartening the International Olympic Committee is and by extension, the Olympics. Any quick search reveals dozens upon dozens of articles on the subject. Currently the focus is on Sochi and the Russian government, but there are just as many disturbing articles about Beijing from a few years back.
My first Olympics came in 1984. It was the summer games, and the year the Soviets boycotted the competition in Los Angeles. Mary Lou Retton won the all around in gymnastics, and there were many American gold medals. I remember being four years old, so upset at the idea that it would be another entire lifetime before I got to see the Olympics again. I had a ribbon on a stick and a took gymnastics for a brief time.
I fell deeply in love with the idea of the Olympics, that it was for people who just loved what they were doing so much they would endure all kinds of hardships to get the chance to do it. I watched every Olympic games, all the sports I would otherwise not care about - track and field, curling, everything. I watched every emotional little mini narrative about an athlete and their struggle to get to this moment. I watched Greg Louganis strike his head on the diving board, ensuring a lifelong inability to make myself jump on a diving board. I watched the Dream Team play basketball, followed the Tonya Harding & Nancy Kerrigan drama and saw the Atlanta bombing live on CNN. I saw Kerri Strug pull off that second vault and almost immediately collapse onto the mat. I remember watching Michelle Kwan skate, and the first Olympic snowboarding in the 90s. I fell in love with Alexei Nemov and Svetlana Khorkina, two of the most amazing gymnasts in the world who made impossible things look easy. I watched the Canadian hockey team win a gold medal for the first time in fifty years. I watched Micheal Phelps swim like something out of a fairy tale. Figure skaters rose and fell. Oscar Pistorius ran on artificial legs.
Every one of those stories moved me. I would cry for the winners and the ones who lost. I loved weird mascots and ridiculous team uniforms and the often incomprehensible ceremonies of opening and closing. I loved every last grand magical moment of spectacle and competition.
A quick perusal of wikipedia makes it easy to find the relevant allegations of bribery, score manipulation, corruption, cheating and all other manner of unsavory things. A google search will turn up articles on the most recent games, with stories eerily similar to ones about Beijing. It isn't just the official graft that is so awful, but the issues of human rights abuses and such swept under the rug as well. It's one thing to thing the scores might be rigged in gymnastics. But all the rest...
I know it is naive to imagine something as big and as commercial as the Olympics could retain some kind of purity or integrity. But I've clung to that ideal for a long time. This year though, it just seems impossible to ignore any longer. I'm sad for the loss of it.
My first Olympics came in 1984. It was the summer games, and the year the Soviets boycotted the competition in Los Angeles. Mary Lou Retton won the all around in gymnastics, and there were many American gold medals. I remember being four years old, so upset at the idea that it would be another entire lifetime before I got to see the Olympics again. I had a ribbon on a stick and a took gymnastics for a brief time.
I fell deeply in love with the idea of the Olympics, that it was for people who just loved what they were doing so much they would endure all kinds of hardships to get the chance to do it. I watched every Olympic games, all the sports I would otherwise not care about - track and field, curling, everything. I watched every emotional little mini narrative about an athlete and their struggle to get to this moment. I watched Greg Louganis strike his head on the diving board, ensuring a lifelong inability to make myself jump on a diving board. I watched the Dream Team play basketball, followed the Tonya Harding & Nancy Kerrigan drama and saw the Atlanta bombing live on CNN. I saw Kerri Strug pull off that second vault and almost immediately collapse onto the mat. I remember watching Michelle Kwan skate, and the first Olympic snowboarding in the 90s. I fell in love with Alexei Nemov and Svetlana Khorkina, two of the most amazing gymnasts in the world who made impossible things look easy. I watched the Canadian hockey team win a gold medal for the first time in fifty years. I watched Micheal Phelps swim like something out of a fairy tale. Figure skaters rose and fell. Oscar Pistorius ran on artificial legs.
Every one of those stories moved me. I would cry for the winners and the ones who lost. I loved weird mascots and ridiculous team uniforms and the often incomprehensible ceremonies of opening and closing. I loved every last grand magical moment of spectacle and competition.
A quick perusal of wikipedia makes it easy to find the relevant allegations of bribery, score manipulation, corruption, cheating and all other manner of unsavory things. A google search will turn up articles on the most recent games, with stories eerily similar to ones about Beijing. It isn't just the official graft that is so awful, but the issues of human rights abuses and such swept under the rug as well. It's one thing to thing the scores might be rigged in gymnastics. But all the rest...
I know it is naive to imagine something as big and as commercial as the Olympics could retain some kind of purity or integrity. But I've clung to that ideal for a long time. This year though, it just seems impossible to ignore any longer. I'm sad for the loss of it.