The 2024 Paris Olympics – – Meh!

The Paris Olympics will open on Friday; the last time the Games were held in Paris was in 1924 – – 100 years ago.  The two sets of Games will bear little resemblance to each other once you get beyond the pomp and circumstance of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies.  In fact, for the Opening Ceremony, only the grandeur will be the same because this year the athletes will be presented onboard barges on the Seine River and not in a land-based stadium.

I am not in Paris; for the moment I am in Alternative Curmudgeon Central in Pennsylvania.  I mention that to make sure no one thinks I am “covering” the Olympic Games; I will watch some events on TV and that is it.  And that declaration makes me wonder how much of the TV coverage that will be available to viewers here in the US will be presented live and in person and covered by people actually in France.  I won’t go so far as to say that NBC and its affiliates “owe it” to the viewers to disclose such information, but it sure would be nice to see some level of candor there.

Frankly, I am not really looking forward to very much from these Games and my nonchalance toward the Olympics is nothing new.  Please take a few moments to read this rant that I posted in March 2007 and this rant from April 2008.  My views about the organizers and about the events themselves have not changed much at all; in fact, the addition of these three new events reinforces my idea that none of the new events have anything at all to do with anything the Greeks did in ancient times or what Olympians did in Paris 100 years ago.  Each host country gets to “introduce” new events to the Games on a “trial basis”.  Here are the three “new Olympic events” for 2024:

• Breaking – – in the US we call this Breakdancing
• Kayak cross – – contestants maneuvering through an aquatic obstacle course
• Surfing – – being held in Tahiti which is a French protectorate not on the Seine River

I am evidently not the only person in the US whose enthusiasm for the Olympics has waned.  American TV ratings were down 25% for the Tokyo Games in 2020 as compared to the Rio de Janeiro Games in 2016.  [Aside:  The TV ratings for the Winter Games in 2022 were down more than 40 percent as compared to the Winter Games in 2018.]  I wonder which of those three new events will attract millions of new viewers to screens all over the US to rejuvenate interest in these games?

Let me throw out a hypothesis here.  Up until the early 1990s, the Winter Games and the Summer Games happened in the same year.  That changed for the Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway when the Winter Games were placed halfway between two summer Game events.  Has the frequency of “Olympic Games” every two years removed some of the “specialness” associated with the Games?  I’ll leave it to sociologists to address that hypothesis, but it is the best I can come up with for now.

When the Olympics were revived in 1896 by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, he envisioned the Olympics as an element of “humans coming together in peace and harmony.”  He predated the Age of Aquarius {Hat Tip to The Fifth Dimension here] to be sure, but his ideals were pretty much the same.  I don’t think that the history of the world in the 20^th Century was one of constant peace and harmony and the fact that both the US and the USSR boycotted Olympic Games as part of their diplomatic confrontations leads me to think that – – just maybe – – the Baron’s Utopian hopes are a bit out of reach.

So, what am I going to find interesting in these games?

• The men’s basketball event will be interesting to me for two reasons.  The first is that the NBA has lots of “foreign imported players” who are quite good and who are now going to play for their “native lands”.  The second reason is that the US men’s team was a 43.5-point favorite over South Sudan in a “warm-up game” and needed a basket with less than 20 seconds remaining to win that game 101-100.  For the record, South Sudanese players are not dominating the NBA and – in fact – there are no indoor basketball arenas in all of South Sudan.  Oh, and did I mention that the US and South Sudan are in the same Group in the basketball tournament and will have to play again …
• Simone Biles will compete in her third Olympic Games which is noteworthy by itself.  Gymnastics is a sport where competitors age very quickly.
• The US Women’s National soccer team was uncharacteristically bounced early from the Women’s World Cup Tournament two years ago.  They have a new coach and a bunch of new players; it will be interesting to see how they perform in these Games.
• The US Men’s National soccer team qualified for the Olympics for the first time since 2008 (Beijing).  Not a lot is expected from the team; as of this morning the odds on the US taking the Gold Medal in men’s soccer are +2500.

So, we are getting to the point where we can count down to the time when the cry will go out to “Let the Games begin!”  My response will be along the lines of “Meh!”

Finally, to make you feel as good as you can about the Paris Olympics, let me close with three observations by Baron Pierre de Coubertin:

“The Olympic Games are the quadrennial celebration of the springtime of humanity.”

And …

“May joy and good fellowship reign, and in this manner, may the Olympic Torch pursue its way through ages, increasing friendly understanding among nations, for the good of a humanity always more enthusiastic, more courageous and more pure.”

And …

“Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy found in effort, the educational value of a good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………