Olympic-sized thoughts

By Eric Voliva

Mention the word Olympics around me and I usually shrug, sigh, grunt, or use some other primitive gesture to express my general disinterest in the whole idea of competing for gold in games that involve wearing spandex, chucking spears and tossing oversized balls around.

Where’s the challenge, I ask?

I grew tired of the repetitious events in elementary school, I became bored of them in middle school, and today I’m as mind-numbingly apathetic as ever. It’s gotten to the point where there’s more entertainment value to be found in trying to pick out the all-natural Waldo from the rest of the crowded pack of performance-enhanced “athletes” than enduring two minutes of uninspired teenagers moving robotically through their routines.

Where’s Tanya Harding when you need her?

But after listening to hours upon hours of the all the hype surrounding this kid Michael Phelps—whom I’ve dubbed “Flipper”—I couldn’t help but tune in and see what all the fuss was about.

I had heard all about how athletic and limber and freakishly gifted in the water he is, but like always, I had just tuned it out and shrugged it off, filing it away in the mental folders labeled “Who Cares” and “Useless Knowledge to be Recycled Later.” And as I flipped on the television I let out a long, pitiful sigh, telling myself that this would be several wasted hours of my life that I could never get back.

But what the hay, it was history in the making. Surely I could spare some of my free time to witness an once-in-a-lifetime eight gold-medal pursuit by an athlete who may actually be naturally good enough to obtain them. It was either this or roam the streets of Liberty City some more—I figured I might as well give my X-Box a break this time and find out what was going on outside of my little sphere of work and play in small-town America.

I realize that I’m a prime specimen from a generation that has forsaken the Olympics while embracing newer, flashier sports whose athletes are less humble, more prone to violent outbursts and occasionally dabble in the art of dance in the offseason. Our tastes have evolved—or devolved, depending on how you choose to look at it—and become fine-tuned to hunger for more complex, more physical, more violent bodies of sport, while leaving behind that bland flavor of synchronized swimming to sour in the mouths of an aging generation.

Oh, how far organized competition has come since the fabled Heracles first decided to erect the Olympic Stadium and extend the symbolic olive branch to neighboring nations in hopes of competing in these games for honor and glory. Oh, how far we have come.

I turned on the television and tuned the channel to CBS or ABC or whatever network is airing the Olympics and prepared to settle in for a good nap. I had a Mt. Dew in one hand and the remote in the other. I was prepared for whatever.

My channel-changing finger was already itching before the television had warmed up and the crackling static fully dissipated from the screen, yet I suppressed the urge to flip to a re-run of Family Guy, The Simpsons or even Seinfeld. And before my mind could rationalize an excuse to change to something more appealing to my funny bone, something odd happened: my heartbeat quickened, my hands clenched tighter and my patriotic pride swelled within me as I witnessed the single greatest swimmer in American history not only defeat his competition, but thoroughly drown them in his record crushing wake. This was the X-factor that I had left unaccounted—the invisible hook that dangled in front of my face—the allure of being witness to the U.S. toppling communist foes as if Reagan were still in office. It was like the fall of Baghdad all over again. It was like turning on the television and finding a gaunt and defeated Sadam staring up at the camera from a hole in the ground like some rat caught holding the cheese. It was stirring and emotional and reminded me that even a jaded gen-x’er could share a part of the national pride that our fathers felt as they stayed communist advances in Vietnam, and as their fathers liberated Europe from Hitler’s grasp, and even as far back as their fathers’ fathers fatefully inked their names on the most powerful of documents the world had ever beheld.

Sure, setting world records in the Olympics isn’t the same as risking your life on the battlefield, but nonetheless it is a piece of national pride that this generation can cling to; something tangible and pure, free from the taint of political division.

I sat there for hours that evening, well into the night, watching as American history was written by a handful of young men and women, and at some point—I’m not exactly sure when—I realized that the Olympics were more than just young adults competing in children’s games. It’s about uniting the generations. It’s about taking pride in your nation. It’s about the moment that you realized that a simple race can lift an entire nation above their everyday lives and into their own little niche in history, if even only for a night.