Olympics past and future

Another Olympics has come and gone. More history was made. More drama. More obsession with medal counts. I do watch the medal counts, but I am not sure what they really mean. The United States had more medals than any country. Our current Olympics nemesis is China, who finished second.

Does that mean we are the biggest, baddest country in the world? The commercialization of the Olympics has reached an all time high. The Olympics used to emphasize amateur athletes. Now, professional athletes are prolific. There were 68 NBA players in men’s basketball. 12 were on the U.S. team. Basketball has gone international.

The Soviet Union or Russia was our main competitor for years. Now Russia is banned for repeated violations of performance enhancing drugs. They can’t seem to stop themselves.

The emphasis on amateurism used to be extreme. Jim Thorpe, a native American won gold medals at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. It was later discovered that Thorpe had played summer ball for a summer sports league for $5 per game. He was stripped of his medals in an international scandal.

My first memories of the Olympics occurred when I was 16. It was the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Being in the same time zone, there was much TV coverage. I will never forget Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their black gloved fists as the U.S. flag was raised and the Star-Spangled banner was played.

I  did not know the significance of that “black power” salute. They faced repercussions. But it happened at a time when there was much racial discrimination.

The 1968 Olympics was the first to have drug testing and gender verification. It was more of the same in 2024.

Now, it is all about the money. NBC has paid more than $7 billion with a “b” to broadcast the Olympics through 2032.

I like to watch the Olympics. The opening and closing ceremonies are big drama.

The idea of having the athletes float down the Seine in Paris was creative. I enjoyed their opening ceremonies very much. The controversy regarding the Last Supper parody went over my head. I didn’t realize there was an issue until the next day when I saw news reports.

When you get to be of a certain age, you wonder how many more Olympics you will see. But as long as I am able, I will tune in every four years to watch the excitement.