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Cog's Weekly Ideas Newsletter
Distractions and delights of Olympic proportions
Editor's Note: This essay appeared in Cognoscenti's weekly Sunday newsletter of ideas and opinions. To become a subscriber, sign up here.
I watched a lot of sports before I became a parent. Baseball, tennis, football, soccer, the Tour de France — I loved it all. But the arrival of children meant a lot less free time, and spectating didn’t make the cut. With one exception: the Olympics. Every four years, I give myself a free pass.
I’ve been up way past my bedtime since the Games began because I just can’t turn away. On Tuesday night, even though I knew Simone Biles and the U.S. Women’s Gymnastics team won gold, I had to see it for myself. This was after I caught “Steve” fever on Monday. (Steve, of course, is Worcester native, Stephen Nederoscik, the bespectacled pommel horse specialist.) I also became very invested in the outcome of the 800m men’s swimming final, which — I’m sorry — is borderline mind-numbing to watch. But I was wrapped up in the story of Bobby Finke, who nearly squeaked out a come-from-behind victory to repeat his gold medal win in Tokyo. He fell .55 seconds short.
I happened to flip on table tennis as I was folding laundry one early morning this week. I like pingpong; I thought I understood it. Then I was introduced to Kanak Jha, 24, an American pingpong prodigy. He’s competing in his third Olympics! As I attempted to fold what felt like a gazillion kid socks, I watched him pummel 44-year-old Panagiotis Gionis, of Greece, to advance to the round-of-16. No American athlete has ever gotten so far in the Olympic singles tournament.
I didn’t know who Ilona Maher was until four days ago, and now I can’t stop watching her TikToks. She’s the 5-foot-10, 200-pound, lipstick-wearing American Rugby player from Vermont, who has gained millions of followers on social media since the Games started. Perhaps you’ve seen clips of her savagely stiff-arming Australian players on the way to the U.S.’s first-ever medal in the rugby sevens? Or deadpanning about meeting her future husband in the food line at the Olympic Village? She’s incredible.
The distractions and delights afforded by the Olympics are endless. They’ve felt like a desperately needed shot of joy. (U.S. Women’s soccer fans: Check out Julie Foudy on Instagram, she can hardly contain her glee about the American “trifecta” of Mallory Swanson, Trinity Rodman and Sophia Smith.) But the factoids about this year’s Games are notable, too. Some of my favorites: In 2024, of the 10,500 athletes from 206 countries competing, there are nearly as many women as men. (According to the International Olympic Committee, it’s the closest the Games has ever come to “full gender parity on the field of play.”) Every Olympic medal handed out in Paris contains iron that was once part of the Eiffel Tower. For the first time ever, there’s a nursery in the Olympic Village for athletes who are parents.
Watching these young men and women compete is inspiring; for many of them, the Olympics are the pinnacle of their careers. I’ve also been thinking about how they’ve done the one thing so many of us fail to do (but actually could) — they show up, consistently, over and over. Through injury, low motivation, various setbacks. I’m hopeful their commitment is rubbing off. I’ve worked out harder in the last eight days than I have in months. And I don’t think I’m the only one. I saw a guy, probably in his mid-50s, going all out on the trail near my house. I swear he was humming the Olympic theme as he chugged by, arms pumping, gasping for air.
I know the Olympics are a big-money operation. The Council on Foreign Relations put true cost estimates for the host country between $19 billion and $34 billion; and the IOC earned $7.6 billion in revenue from the 2020 Tokyo Games. But I am still swayed by the romanticism of the Games. The idea that for two weeks, the world comes together to participate in sport. Imagine what might happen if we could always be so collegial?
So many of these Olympic athletes are people who pay the bills with regular jobs, as teachers, in retail and as business owners. Just ask Flava Flav, who is now an official sponsor of the U.S. Women’s Water Polo team. We’ve been doing this modern-era version of the Olympics since 1896, but we humans have been playing many of these sports for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. The ancient Olympic Games — we’re talking 600 B.C. or thereabouts – included running, long jump, shot put, javelin, boxing, pankration (a wrestling/boxing combo) and equestrian events.
Gauzy, Olympic-watching Cloe wishes the Games were in Boston this year after all. Practical Cloe is intensely relieved not to be battling somehow-even-worse traffic. But wouldn’t it be something to witness these feats of human glory in person and not just on TV?
It made the Cog team wonder how other people feel about the Olympics. So, we did a round up of what Cog’s contributors, readers and our own colleagues are looking forward to this year, and their most salient memories from the Games gone by. We hope you enjoy it.
