Racing to the Olympics
Photos by Jessie G Photography from our travels together in Athens 2021.
A feisty Language Arts teacher plopped a handout on my desk sometime during my junior year. The margins of the essay, “The Sporting Spirit,” were crooked, and a thumb had been copied onto the Xerox. And then I got to these words:
“Anyone who has played even in a school football match knows this. At the international level sport is frankly mimic warfare. But the significant thing is not the behaviour of the players but the attitude of the spectators: and, behind the spectators, of the nations who work themselves into furies over these absurd contests, and seriously believe – at any rate for short periods – that running, jumping and kicking a ball are tests of national virtue—In other words it is war minus the shooting.”
In a silent classroom, I burst out laughing. My teacher ticked up a stern eyebrow. My first exposure to George Orwell and I would have believed he wrote satire and comedy for a living. 1984, the second exposure, corrected my thinking. “The Sporting Spirit” made me want to attend the Olympics desperately. How could one read about a riotous affair of people, like at the Dynamo game of 1945, and not want to be right in the thick of it?
Well, maybe more people than most would stay very clear of how Orwell describes a football match.
Not me! An essay like that kicked up a dust storm of FOMO (fear of missing out) inside me. The closest I’ve ever been to what Orwell described as, “games built up into a heavily-financed activity, capable of attracting vast crowds and rousing savage passions,” was celebrating in downtown Denver when the Broncos won the NFL Superbowl in 2016. We shouted ourselves hoarse! Hugs and high-fives were shared between strangers. Everyone experienced the height of victory all at once. It was an absolute core memory for me.
Two years ago, I stood on the track in the Olympic Park Stadium in Athens. It was the first international trip I’d taken since COVID quarantine began. Everything about being around crowds of people was different. The world had changed. I wondered if that moment would be the closest I would ever get to attending the Olympics or a World Cup. There had been so much talk about televising and or reducing the size after Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics.
It was a tangle of emotion on that sunny day. Athens and many other places in the world were suffering from lack of visitors. I’d been hesitant to travel myself for many reasons. A woman told me something that really stuck in my mind. Something close to: There is a lot wrapped up in the human experience. We are a really messy species. But it’s rather beautiful to me that we need one another to be human.
Our long-loved traditions did make a return. Sporting events, sharing meals with others, crossing international borders, weddings, and using public spaces. In one week, I’m headed to the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. It’s nearly surreal. This is a big dream come true.
We’ve gotten a lot of questions about safety and crowds and how we plan to manage to get around the City of Lights that will be full to bursting. What I don’t think people understand is good side of the sporting spirit is a major reason why I’m going. Instead of Orwell’s realism and bluntness, I’m thinking of Wilma Rudolph’s take, "Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirits."
Come with me to the Olympics! I’ll be posting throughout my travels on Instagram and Facebook. I’ve linked some of my favorite Olympic stories for you to enjoy. Keep your eyes on the events during NBC’s watch hours, you might just spy me waving a flag with some new friends!
