Toe the line
Emotional at the Olympics
Today’s accompanying tune: “Titan Spirit” by Trevor Rabin, Jay Bocook, and Hal Leonard
I have watched the closing montage of the 2024 Paris Olympics no fewer than 20 times since it aired last weekend, and I have cried each with each and every viewing. If you haven’t already watched it, I recommend taking a few minutes to do so here. I’ll wait.
I will admit that I unabashedly adore the Olympics. I competed in athletics — not well, I’ll say — all throughout my childhood into college. After a brief hiatus in early adulthood, I’m even now challenging myself with bigger, scarier athletic feats. I watch organized sports of all stripes — in high school, my dream career was one in which I could help create the opening montages played at the beginning of home games. I’d do it for any team, any athlete, of any sport, simply because the energy and emotion communicated in those hype videos were downright infectious. Team loyalties came and went as I moved farther away from the teams I grew up with, as my relationship with national sports leagues soured, as my weekends became more about my own pursuits rather than those of strangers on the court, the field, or the course.
What never changed was my outright devotion to sport. To the pursuit of the pursuit, as it were. The idea that one person could care so much about something that is admittedly frivolous, often selfish, and largely useless made it that much more appealing — their guiding light only their passion, their curiosity. Could I do it? Could I be the one to break this record, achieve this goal? Why not? There is awe in watching any person push themselves to their edge, watch them watch themselves achieve things they had trained for, yes, but also didn’t dare to dream about. Their belief a buoy in an otherwise tumultuous sea threatening to pull them under, never to be seen again.
Even prior to this summer’s Games, I’ve found myself tuning into more sporting events even as I continue to shun some of the more popular organized sports here in the U.S. I’ll listen to a baseball game if it’s on — more background noise than entertainment — and I will sometimes make the effort to tune into football games on the weekends. But more compelling are the quieter events, the ones with devoted followings and subcultures all their own. The types of events that take center stage every four years before receding into the background before reemerging and capturing the world’s attention yet again. Events like ultramarathons, gymnastics competitions, sport climbing. Events where each athlete is testing not only their athletic prowess but also their ability to endure. Their ability to grit their teeth and decide they are going to finish this race, send this route, nail this routine. Where the crowds cheer, not for a team or allegiance, but for the other people that have opted to love a sport as wildly and unabashedly as they do. To spend hours, days, months, years, working on building mileage, building muscle, building resilience in hopes that even an ounce more can help carry them through. Athletes that simply want to prove to themselves that they can, and they will, to the best of their abilities.
Watching athletes from around the world compete in the Olympics is its own surreal experience. Athletes with little in common back home toe the same line, race the same race, execute the same moves. When I’m watching these athletes, I cannot help but root for them all. To see someone achieve their dream on the world stage, to break down in tears at the end of a race or after they stick the landing or hit that final lap, is to see their humanity, their passion, their whole being. It is cliché at best, but it is also a heartwarming reminder of the camaraderie of sport, of this thing people have decided to dedicate their entire lives to simply because they love it. Watching the sport climbing finals, I couldn’t help but feel the swell of warmth at the beginning of the lead round where all eight athletes huddled together, trading tips on how to get up the wall that would decide who ultimately walked away with a medal, and who would go home empty handed. Though in competition, they chose instead to collaborate.
Some sports, I will admit, have over-glamorized competition. And sure, many Olympians are in fact Olympians because they compete, and they win. But the idea that sports are simply an us-versus-them phenomena, that winners do indeed take all, feels reductive in the wake of watching this years’ competitions. Much is made over this rivalry, that drama, this scandal. But in talking to athletes, listening to their interviews in their own words, I was continually struck by how not competitive they seemed. By how, really, their biggest competitor was themselves, their fears, their own inner demons telling them they can’t, they won’t. But still, they did, and did, and did. Simply because they wanted to see if they could. They respected their competitors, their fellow athletes, with many marveling at how they could have come out on top in such a stacked field. That, for many, the once-in-a-lifetime chance to prove themselves on such a stage was made so much sweeter by doing so surrounded by fellow athletes they admired. And sure, maybe that’s all just a nice thing to say in the press. But the optimist in me, the athlete in me, really believes it. Believes that they are being sincere in saying so, because it’s the same way I feel at the end of any race. So full of admiration for everyone that came out, such respect at the strangers that — maybe unknowingly — pushed me beyond where I thought I could go. The ones that brought a smile to my face while I was struggling, fighting for each step and wanting to throw in the towel. The ones that make such a feat possible because they, too, thought it was possible.
And when enough people start to believe it’s possible, well, the energy, the emotion becomes infectious. Much like the hype videos of my childhood, so are the crowds of onlookers, the field of athletes. Instead of a slick highlight reel, it’s the faces in the early morning, the people whose names you never learn but make all the difference in your own journey. It’s, hopefully, my face doing that for someone else, anyone else, on race day and beyond. It’s the little dance I did at mile seven of a half marathon to the whoops and cheers of those behind me before one guy said, “if she can do that, I can keep running.” It’s not just the belief in yourself, but a belief in all of us. That we know what it took to get there, knew the sacrifices and early mornings and hours dedicated to this pursuit that is frivolous, a little selfish, and pretty useless. All because we love the sport. Maybe because we love to win. Maybe because we love setting a goal and achieving it. But always because we love the look in our fellow athletes’ faces when they come over the finish line. Because we love ourselves when we’re doing it. Because watching other people achieve their dreams, achieve a goal they didn’t know they could achieve, well, that’s the best show there is. It’s beautiful. It’s inspiring. It’s everything humanity can be, everything we should be for each other. It’s golden.
Here’s to going for gold.
- Megan
P.S. The Olympics may be over, but the Paralympics haven’t yet begun! The 2024 Paris Paralympics begin on Wednesday, August 28, and you can bet that I’m bringing all my emotions and optimism to watch.