Is it me or has the Olympics lost some of its glory? The last Summer Games that I can remember following with any interest were the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney came and went with nary an impact, except the negative one of Izzy (short for, believe it or not, Whatizit), the ridiculous mascot of the 1996 Games.
The Olympics started yesterday and I wasn't even interested in watching the opening ceremony until I saw pictures of the spectacular show online. That may be because NBC, hungry for prime-time material like every blinking network in this country, saw it fit to delay the telecast by six hours. But it still doesn't explain why the only thing about these Games that interests me is whether Michael Phelps will get the seven golds that people expect him to. Am I just too busy with other stuff to care? Or am I (gasp) becoming as apathetic as the average American about any sport or sporting event outside the US? No wait, that can't be the reason - I hate baseball and watch as much cricket and soccer as I can possibly find. So then (cringe) whatizit?
I think at least a part of the reason is all the corruption and cheating that has tainted the IOC and the athletes in the past few years. Tales of IOC members selling their votes to the highest bidder and the recent drug scandals have taken some of the shine off what should be mankind's greatest tribute to health and fitness and general sportsmanlike behaviour.
Another possibility is the complete absence of promotion. Maybe this is just true in the US, but it seems to me that ATHOC has done precious little to advertise the Games like it ought to. After all, this is the biggest multi-sport event in the world. And it only happens once every four years. That should be plenty of time to get your act together. Terror threats or not.
Which brings me to the final nail in the Olympic coffin. Given the state of the world right now, it is small wonder that sports is taking a (hopefully temporary) backseat. When one country's population hates another country's enough to destroy it in a retaliatory (oops, pre-emptive) act that is only topped by the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki forty-nine years ago, the milk of human kindness becomes slightly hard to distinguish in the river of blood.
Maybe the modern Olympics has outlived its usefulness. Or maybe, just maybe, it is the only hope for an increasingly cynical and destructive species to unite and find peace. But before that happens, everyone involved in the Games has to first clean up his/her own act.
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