Why You Should Rewatch the Olympics

Unity is fragile. Like coming upon a deer in the wild, it will bolt if we’re not careful.

Getty Images

My young siblings and I had just started the animated flick An American Tale, which we rented from the video store two blocks away. It was Friday, one of the few nights of the week we were allowed to watch movies.

My parents came into the room. Dad paused the VCR and announced they’d like to do something boring instead: watch the Olympics. With only one TV in the house and possibly emboldened by our numbers, we protested.

We came up with every bit of logic our confident, underdeveloped brains could grasp. We rarely watched sports—why start tonight? We didn’t know any of the teams or players. Heck, we didn’t even recognize a lot of the sports! And Fievel and his mouse friends surely had some good morals and manners to teach little troublemakers like us.

Can you guess who won? Boring or not, we joined our parents in watching the Calgary Olympics together that winter in 1988. The TV was on, after all.

We were right in our expectations. Event after event, we had little frame of reference. With a few recognizable exceptions, the countries were three random letters next to a few random colors in a rectangle. It was difficult to tell which of the participants were Americans—the athletes, coaches, and fans for each country seemed to show the same intensity, grins, elation, nervousness, and heartbreak.

That’s if Americans were in that event at all. In TV sports, you usually know exactly who your team is going in, and my international sports exposure was limited to the relatively straightforward Karate Kid Part II. This was mentally exhausting as we didn’t always know who to root for among so many choices, and shot glances at our parents for cues. Sometimes it was the underdog, or an Olympian the network selected for an 8-minute segment showcasing their story.

Olympic viewing was different 36 years ago. It had fewer clips and highlights, and more long-form coverage. Between the moments of action, the cameras had nothing else to do besides follow the athletes and coaches around while the announcers attempted to convince a 9-year-old how interesting and exciting this all was. (The long hours of figure skating were agonizing, but I admit the skiers with guns caught my interest.)

With the whole thing winding down in a few weeks, there wasn’t time to settle in. No opportunity to buy your favorite athlete’s T-shirt—if you had even decided who your favorite was—before it would all be over.

The Shupe kids were undoubtedly justified in looking forward to the closing ceremonies as we stared at the TV with droopy eyelids and stone faces. (Did I mention the endless figure skating?)  But the reasons I enjoy the Olympic Games today, and why I think the world needs them more than ever, are precisely the same things that annoyed me decades before.

I’ve come to see that the humans of Planet Earth need an occasional team-building exercise. Just as go-kart racing with Sandy from accounting and Dylan from IT support somehow helps you all work better together, it impacts us profoundly to see the nations of the world in a different light every now and then. Instead of geopolitical foes, we see hard work, honor, and sportsmanship. In place of global CNN headlines, we see supportive moms and dads. Soldiers, tanks, and political leaders are swapped for cheering hometowns and regular, relatable people.

I know, some of you are going to say, “We’ve seen your picture; we don’t buy that you can relate in any way to an athlete, elite or otherwise.” And you’d be correct. But we’ve all worked hard for things—have had successes and failures. The glimpse of common humanity across borders strikes a chord in us.

We come with open minds, ready to meet new athletes and learn about new sports. It’s a good thing. We watch matches we don’t understand, sometimes pretending to know the rules even while we wonder which part of the body matters when crossing the finish line, and why the points in wrestling seem to be assigned at random.

What’s more, this World Family Reunion reminds us that behind the foreign cultures, languages, and regimes, we’re all people that want basically the same things for ourselves and those we love. Together with citizens of other nations, we all probably have a leader or two giving us a reputation we’re embarrassed about. While those in each nation appreciate other cultures, they’re also proud of their own. Understanding this in a deep way boosts our hope in humanity and strengthens invisible bonds across continents, whether or not we personally ever come into contact with those nations or their people. Every world traveler says that everyone should visit other parts of the globe, and this perspective they gain is one of the reasons why. If you can achieve a little bit of this every few years for free, why not?

Unity is fragile, and at many levels, we feel it slipping. Divided nations fall, and fragmented regions war. An important byproduct of this periodic celebration of sport and contestants is the repair of our cohesion, reminding us of some authentic underlying desire we all have for harmony. Our trend is to spend exponentially more attention and energy on what divides rather than what’s in common, which isn’t healthy.

The Paris opening ceremonies tested this, with imagery that initially appeared to many of us to deliberately insult millions of its viewers and athletes. Reactions ranged from uproar against the sacrilege on one hand to raging against the uproar on the other. This dominated social media for days, with one side feeling uninvited to the games and the other side claiming that if you were offended, you were the problem.

I didn’t boycott the games, but I was among those who felt that something sacred to me was mocked that night. Many are saying that this was unintentional, and that there are aspects of it that I didn’t understand, mythology and whatnot. This may be true. What saddens me the most, though, is the missed opportunity for greater solidarity. Unlike any other event, the nations of the earth arrive to keep the unique ritual of the Olympic Opening Ceremonies, exhausted from global turmoil and ready to put our differences aside. A crucial moment of world unity was ours for the taking. The Last Supper on the bridge didn’t shatter it, but it was certainly an unnecessary distraction—and it doesn’t take much.

Whether or not offense was intended, I hope we have learned this lesson going forward that the Olympics belong to all of us, in a sense. With respect to the host nation, your top job is to make the nations of the world feel welcome. While edgy displays and bold challenges to cultural norms are fine in many settings, they should probably be kept to a minimum here. When my home state of Utah hosts the Olympics ten years from now, I’ll insist that we run our artistic plans by a competent, diverse panel, asking if there is anything we should change to avoid things that could be interpreted in a way that offends a nation or major culture.

The Olympic Games are really a macrocosm of ourselves, aren’t they? Our nations, our communities, our friendships. Picture the neighbor four doors down that you barely know, the one that proudly posted a yard sign supporting all the things that you’re against. After a severe windstorm, the neighborhood gets together for cleanup. You work together removing debris from their yard, and they help you with yours. Seeing another side of people—a very human side—can make all the difference. This is what the Olympics feels like to me.

Yes, unity is fragile. Like coming upon a deer in the wild, it will bolt if we’re not careful. Let’s watch for moments of unity at all levels of life and allow ourselves to get caught up in the moment. With all our diversity, multiculturalism, and coexistence, oh how we need that little bit of this to make it all work! The problems and the conflict will still be there tomorrow; it’s okay to just set it aside for a moment.

So, how did you do at the Paris Olympics? (It’s not just the athletes here; we are all invited to participate!) Did you just pull up the medal count to see how your country stands? Did you mostly watch 30-second social media clips of the last leg of a race, a ridiculous breakdance, or Simone Biles doing a quadruple backflip from a standstill?

I hope you got some long-form events in, too, spending some TV time with real people of other nationalities. I hope you took a long look at not just the athletes but their coaches, friends, and parents in the stands. Take in the moments of sportsmanship and even friendship shown by athletes from countries at war with each other. 

If you didn’t, take an hour next week to look up some videos of obscure events. Then, tell your coworkers you’re going home to watch (or rewatch) the Olympics.

Better yet, get your kids to watch with you.

We welcome you to share your thoughts on this piece in the comments below. Click here to view our comment section moderation policy. 

The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism or its employees.

In keeping with our mission to promote a common culture of fairness, understanding, and humanity, we are committed to including a diversity of voices and encouraging compassionate and good-faith discourse.

We are actively seeking other perspectives on this topic and others. If you’d like to join the conversation, please send drafts to submissions@fairforall.org.