Really Watching the Olympics

Really Watching the Olympics

I like ice skating competitions in the winter games and gymnastics in the summer games and rarely watched other events in previous years. For the Brazil Olympics, I watched what competitions I could from the opening to the ending ceremonies, mainly from self-serving motives. What better way to get character names of various nations for my stories than by getting examples from a venue where so many nations are represented?  A funny thing happened on my way to making my list.

I started to recognize names and people. I hadn’t realized how many of the sports had elimination rounds or heats to find the best to be in the final medal rounds. I heard many stories of the athletes’ lives and started to root for those who touched me or seemed the most skilled. I thought volleyball was boring, didn’t know there were two types—beach with two players each side and indoor with six.

US women’s beach-volleyball team Kerri Walsh Jennings and April Ross especially captured my imagination. Their teamwork, shot setups, and execution deserved the words poetry in motion. I actually groaned out loud when they lost their chance at gold and was mollified when they won the bronze medal. I couldn’t help laughing at the testosterone-driven facial and vocal displays of the indoor male volleyball competitors.

World Harmony

The Olympics is a microcosm of world relations. It was heartwarming to see one female runner, who accidently knocked over a runner of another country, stop and help her to the finish line. It was disheartening to see water polo rivals Serbia and Croatia play out some of the antipathy between their countries in the pool. The playful camaraderie of Jamaica’s Usain Bolt and a rival runner, I think from Ethiopia, coming in first and second respectively during a heat to advance them to the finals kept me smiling for hours.

In ice skating, I have seen preference shown for certain countries during previous Olympics. I noticed nothing like this in Brazil. Rules seemed equally applied and challenges to rulings were fairly and swiftly dealt with, such as the one by the American women’s relay-race team. A member of another team accidentally jostled a runner as she was to receive the baton, which was dropped and caused the US team to be eliminated from the final race. They challenged the ruling, saying they had been impeded, and were allowed to rerun the heat by themselves. They qualified for the finals and won the gold medal.

Gender Issues

The only preference between the sexes I noticed was that the women’s gymnastics competitions were televised during primetime, very little of the men’s. That surprised me. An issue still needing to be resolved is the matter of transgender athletes. One publicized athlete born male but identifying as female easily outdistanced the other female runners in the track and field race in which she competed.

They thought to measure testosterone as a means of deciding where these athletes should compete, but no scientific data exists suggesting that makes a difference in ability. I don’t understand why that should be the criteria. It is well known that the male body generally has more muscle and therefore more power and stamina than a female of the same size. I haven’t seen any transgender female-to-male athletes competing with other males. They can’t compete. I doubt most female athletes can compete with a male-to-female transgender athlete either.

I hope the committees looking into this come up with a fair and humane solution before the winter Olympics, which I will again watch with interested attention and no doubt greatly enjoy.