I haven't written very much about the Olympics. I've been watching them a lot, and enjoying them a lot (I've got USA v Russia in men's hockey on right now), but I think they are far less important than a lot of people seem to. I used to feel otherwise. I remember watching them on TV all the way back to 1960. I fantasized being an Olympian. I contributed to the U.S. Olympic Committee ("America doesn't send a team to the Olympics, Americans do.") I was enthralled by Bud Greenspan's Olympiad Series on television. I actually went to the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, the entire 16 days.
But I have since come to realize that the original ideas behind the Olympics have been overwhelmed--not that they were perfect in the first place. As I have gotten older, I have come to put the stories of the Olympic athletes and their successes and failures in perspective. Each games there are new stories of athletes achieving their life-long dreams. There are new people going beyond their expectations--and many more falling short, frequently dismally short. The Olympic stage does not bring out the best performances in some. There are always controversies, allegations of cheating, doping, judging incompetence if not outright corruption.
The Olympics have become basically one big commercial operation. Sure, there are no sponsors' signs at the venues. But we all know that the the bulk of the money for the games comes from the television networks, especially the American one. They get the money by selling commercial time, promising the buyers large audiences for their ads. To get the large audiences they hype up the American athletes, frequently way beyond reason.
Most of the athletes, at least most of the ones contending for the medals, are full-time professionals. The idea that they are representing their countries is secondary at best, especially for those in the individual events. They are frequently the products of very expensive athlete production operations. For instance, the big alpine ski teams are equipped with hundreds of thousands of dollars of skis. The ski manufacturers will provide them because having their skis used by Olympic racers, especially by Olympic race winners, is great advertising, and will help them sell more skis. And unfortunately, the athlete production operations (with or without the consent of the athletes) are not above cutting corners, such as with doping, to get their people up on the winners' podium.
And this is where I really lost a lot of my enthusiasm for the Olympics. The commercialism I can take. It's the motivation of the athletes I have problems with. Someone once did a poll of Olympic athletes. They were asked if they would take an undetectable drug that would guarantee them a gold medal, but would also cut twenty years off their lives. As I remember, a good majority said yes. I think they also asked if they would take a similar drug that would that would cut their life in half, and nearly 30 percent would use that also. I lost a lot of my admiration for Olympic athletes. I think sports should enhance one's life, not decrease it. I think these people's priorities are out of whack.
I do still enjoy watching them, but it's more like I'm just watching a performance being given for my entertainment. I look at the quest for Olympic glory with a great deal of skepticism. If that's what the competitors want to do with their lives, that's OK, as long as they don't cheat, but I no longer dream of being one--and it's not a life-style I'd advocate for any young person.
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