For better or worse, watching the Olympics is an intense experience for me. I don’t watch the Closing Ceremonies, because they only remind me that there is a void in my life that needs to be filled.
Otherwise, here are my last thoughts on the games:
- The US and China basically engage in different competitions. The Chinese are bit players in swimming, track, and team sports, while we don’t care about the sports they dominate. As a result, you almost never see close, dramatic confrontations between athletes of the two countries. Our real rivals are Australia and Jamaica.
- The pandemic made a difference. China and island nations that mostly kept the virus out clearly had an advantage over us.
- I did a thought experiment which led me to realize that I have more vivid memories of the 1972 than the 2016 Olympics. I think there is a message in there about youth and consciousness. What will we remember about Tokyo, besides the pandemic? Probably the Biles fiasco, the failures of our sprinters, KD bailing out our basketball team, and the successes of our swimmers. Time will tell.