It's a shame some have chosen not to watch the Olympics, and miss moments such as this.
I have kind of lost interest in the Olympics for various reasons.
As a kid, I always thought it was super exciting to have the winter and summer Olympics in the same year. It was such a big deal when that year rolled around and it felt like a whole year of coverage. For whatever reason, can't say it's right or wrong, I lost some enthusiasm when they changed the format. That Olympic year every 4th year was such a big deal when I was a kid.
Another reason I have lost some interest is the decrease in national affiliation. Case in point, I turned the games on earlier this week and it happened to be the pole vault. They were profiling the "Swedish" pole vaulter Armand Duplantis. Turns out he was born and raised in Louisiana Fully American. Trained in America. American parents. He's more American than apple pie and baseball. But his mom is Swedish, though she immigrated to the States 40 years ago and 15 years before Armand was born. He competes for Sweden because the offered his dad the pole vault coach position for the national team.
It just seems silly to me that you can compete for a country where you are not a citizen and have never lived, yet go up on that podium and hear that country's anthem played, then go back to your own home country after the games are over. It seems even sillier that the citizens of a country will ecstatically celebrate a non-citizen winning on behalf of their country. Just weird. The Olympics are, first and foremost, about national pride. Or used to be. Yes, you have individuals, but they are all part of Team USA or Team France or whatever. You compete for your country...or are supposed to. When I was kid there were intense rivalries between competitors from various countries, and it always felt more like country vs country. And who can forget USA hockey defeating Russia? Arguably the most thrilling moment in sports history not because any individual did anything but because America beat the Russians.
There has overall just been a decrease in the national pride aspect, and that's much of what made it exciting to me as a kid.
Yes, I know there has always been some of what I described above, but it's just so widespread now. Most of the top swimmers in the world come to the US to train. Then go and swim for their home countries. The top swimmer from France, Marchand, is coached by an American who happens to be Michael Phelps old coach.
That said, I do enjoy the individual stories like the above. There have been some impressive moments. Katie Ledecky is a beast. It's always fun to see someone from a little country win. A runner from Saint Lucia won the women's 100 m gold, beating out 2 Americans, but it was so cool to see because it was the country's first ever Olympic medal of any kind, and it was a gold to boot. Those kinds of things are just fewer and farther between than they used to be.
Feel free to disagree, as I know you will, but there's not a right or wrong on it.
