Loving the Olympics

I am buoyed up by the personal triumphs, the drama, the expectation, the hope and the extraordinary daring. Imagine pitting yourself against the very best in the world at a particular finite moment in time! I admire the resoluteness, the dedication and the will to train hard during several hours a day in the quest to be the very best that one can be. Seeing the wonderful creation that is the human being operating at maximum physical potency, the mind and emotions engaged to achieve perfection, however short, is sublime

The Games have been modernised with new sports being added but there are sports I don’t approve of as Olympic sports, such as boxing. I will never accept that it is sporting to deliberately try to beat someone else’s brain out. But then I dislike all contact sports, especially rugby where brawn outranks beauty

The modern Games have also grown to include an array of new countries, which is another reason I love them

The official symbol of five interlocking colored rings, representing the continents of North and South America, Asia, Africa, Europe and Australia is perhaps the only cultural symbol of our togetherness. It is a treat to see all the ethnicities that comprise the rich human gene pool on parade, and we get the rare accidental opportunity to learn something about world politics. In the 1920s when the modern Games were inaugurated there was no Israel, Myanmar or independent Trinidad and Tobago. Still today the map is changing. South Sudan, for example, is a relatively new country still experiencing its violent birth pangs but its small handful of athletes carried their flag high in the splendid opening ceremony. Like other Olympiads they represent their country but can leave as the best individual athletes in the world

The Olympics links us to the past, tying us to a tradition of the ancient world that has been kept pretty much in tact, and it differs from all other international sporting events for where else could a Trini compete against a Pole or a person from the Solomon Islands, Congo or Bhutan? In which other competition could you find all countries and genders in one place? It is not surprising that the woes of one of the very few, truly global get-togethers attract a lot of news and interest. Add the sporting element and the world’s media to the equation and you are guaranteed the feeding frenzy of juicy stuff that digital, print and broadcast media outlets need to fill the weeks, months and years ahead of each Games. And in truth, there is much to concentrate our minds

The corruption was always there - apparently King Nero ordered that he win although he fell off his chariot during the race - but now the very prospect of hosting the Games is itself under threat. Fewer countries are bidding to spend the upwardly spiralling, already huge costs involved in building top grade special but later white elephant facilities, improving national infrastructure where it is not most needed and providing security at the expense of the needs of its unhappy citizens. I support suggestions for a network of regional countries to co-host the Games, as in the football World Cup

That won’t be without its own problems, but it will make it possible for more cities and continents to eventually be host and better manage the developments

T h e b e au - t i f u l Olymp i c s m u s t k e e p evolving or die