***
This year, 2022, there is sufficient buzz about the unpleasant politics and inhumane behavior under the snowy surface of the Beijing winter Olympics. Some people are particularly agitated and claiming this will be a stain on Olympic history. They say the IOC has been corrupted and bent to the sway of profits and commercialism, as if this is something new. With so much focus on the global economy, why WOULDN’T handing the reins to China happen? That’s like asking why the USA gets to call the shots when it comes to who has use and ownership of nuclear weapons.
The USA has plenty of history in inhumane behavior; so now that porcelain China shows some rotting ivories, it’s the enemy of all humanity? It’s Nazi Germany? The IOC, however that works, took the easy road and let the biggest financial source on the east side run the show for two years out of the past twenty-two. Big deal. [Well, if China has any sort of military/financial merger in the works with presently hostile-looking Russia and Mr. Putin, it could be a big deal…for everyone. Yet, that’s just the regular cup of coffee in global news; two nations reaching an agreement that scares the rest of the world like birds on a wire.] And, what happens when the USA or Canada gets the reins, again? What if someone digs up dirt on the west side? Ooh. I’m shaking in wonder.
Certain nations refused to send political figures to Beijing as a sort of boycott, trying to make a statement. China supposedly responded by attempting to appear innocent of any crime in the public eye…and re-using a song from the previous Olympics for one of their world-unification displays. [I thought that was rather tacky.] And, regardless of what people in suits and ties fail to agree upon, the games go on with so many highly (and some poorly) trained athletes risking their lives in more ways than one to get a slice of fame, income and glory, branded with logos and sponsorships, stalked by cameras. Is it any wonder any one of them crumbles under the pressure?
Under the clouds of racial and political discontent, there are the same athletic struggles and stumbles seen year after year; athletes, sometimes, just failing from lousy weather/course conditions. If I go back and look at every Olympics season, I’m sure to see someone suffer some sort of emotional, psychological fracture. One “perfect” athlete, in particular, chose to make a spectacle of herself by driving drunk. Another turned to violence against a competitor. Others suffer some sort of shocking health crisis which I doubt any sponsor wants to advertise and/or fund; it reminds me of those ads for the “wounded warriors.” The “racehorses,” who get pumped up to the highest level of pressure for the entertainment and gambling of others, go from the spotlight to rehab and misery; and we just keep moving on from season to season, sending more “warriors” to the slaughter. Fun!
Just as I am writing this piece, I am watching the national news representative(s) repeatedly stab a particularly dazzling, beautiful, fiery blonde starlet with icy shards of doubt and discouragement for making one mistake in one race of one event in which she is eligible to compete. Who, other than myself, thinks she will have a psychological breakdown, especially after being spotlighted for coping with the grief of losing a parent? Come on, humanity! Show your shining star some compassion!
Idiots, with your stupid repetitive questions about her one lackluster performance! Shut the freak up and let her ski! I’m giving you a 98% deduction for being near-complete morons. You’re not even worthy of being complete morons; you’re still imperfect. What separates you from complete morons? No one knows. Live with that. Or, better yet, get yourselves involved in some stupid cancel-culture scandal and just go away.
Most of the time, most seasons, the real disasters faced by “star” athletes get washed out by the talk of technical errors, medal counts and the general push for tourism, advertising the host nation and other vacation venues around the world…because, it seems, whenever it’s Olympics season, it’s also vacation/travel season. Everyone is pushing everyone to get out there, explore the world and fuel the global economy, including those sponsors who are placing bids on all the young (and a few not-so-young) racehorses otherwise known as Olympic competitors. So, what’s the big deal with one host nation having poor ethics and making faulty promises in the big scheme of commercialized competition?
Personally, if I wanted to boycott an Olympics, I’d refuse to send my nation’s athletes as well as my political elite. Just skip the games, completely. Sorry, athletes, your insane amount of rehearsing, physical training, rehab, building up the hopes of sponsors and promotional efforts were in vain. You have to understand that politics got in the way of you enjoying the spirit of global peace and friendly competition. That is…if the Olympics ARE a source of global peace and friendly competition.
How friendly is competition so strongly operated by commercial sponsors? How friendly is competition in which athletes run the risk of ruining their bodies for life just to get a tenth-of-a-point edge above their competitors? And, how are athletes from every nation that can send them supposed to feel the unifying spirit of the Olympics when their every move and breath is under scrutiny and threatened by questionable leadership?
If I was a competitor in the Beijing winter games, and someone filled my head with all of the political unrest circling the host nation, not to mention the prevailing concerns over general health and the whole COVID-19 scare, I’d be sufficiently afraid to even set foot in China. One wonders what gives so many the courage to compete, considering the circumstances. Is it all concern over finances? Is an athlete’s paycheck from temporary, fleeting stardom worth the risk, better than getting a regular job? [And, if that last bit is true, what does that say about the global economy? It sucks? Jobs, in general…suck?] Is it like a $100 gift card to get a not-very-effective vaccine shot? Are fears for safety and security washed away by financial promises from gambling sponsors? And, how is the competition still fun when so much is “riding on the line” and a tiny mistake can separate stardom from “nothing?”
Once upon a time, the Olympics were a truce between warring factions of the world, a break from the usual conflict over land ownership with the hope of dissolving animosity with fair and non-lethal competition, a little amusement to break up the quarrels over who makes a better king or emperor and who gets to enslave the people of a land that looks like easy prey. They were not the deadly contests of Roman gladiators. No one was being thrown to the lions. And, no one mistreated the lions for sport or commercial gain.
If you look at recent Olympics, you might see a few casualties who are essentially lion food when they leave the host nation. Of course, there are also those rare champion, legend stories of athletes who suffer horribly one year and then pick themselves back up to win some sort of medal or prize in another Olympics. But, those are truly rare cases. And, the media like to make everyone watching think anyone who breaks their body into a million pieces or suffers the big bad “C” can recover and be the next shining star, be that next contender to wear a suit covered in the logos of financial backers who all want a piece of the glory achieved by one fragile human being.
So, you see, while some are so furiously concerned with politics and inhumane treatment THIS year, we are neglecting the racehorses who often enough suffer just as badly. Some might be kept in prisons and/or forced to work under unpleasant conditions. But, even the most prized athletes are coming out of the shadows of their training spaces to expose equally troubling secrets, sometimes years after they were shining so brightly in the spotlight. And, it wasn’t a high-ranking political figure who deserved the blame; it was someone on the training staff.
The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics are nothing special; they certainly are not as shiny as the 2008 edition. But, I have yet to see a single Olympics in which everything went perfectly or was completely innocent and entertaining. Every year there is something that leaves me a little sour. On that note, I don’t aspire to appear in any Olympics competition…but I’d sure love to be in that stadium at the opening and closing ceremonies, befriending people from around the world who share my passions, ideally initiating friendships that I can carry with me the rest of my life.
The best of every Olympics comes in the little moments you see happen between athletes from competing nations, when two individuals, working so hard to earn the most coveted medal, share friendly words and affectionate gestures. Differences fold under the emotional weight of relief. The temporary rivals know the fight is over, and friendship is free to begin. And, that is the true medal, the real prize of every Olympics games. You can’t capture it with a drone or cellphone camera. You can’t wear it around your neck or on a nylon jacket; you wear it in your heart. No sponsor can claim credit or take any money from that. It’s the best of humanity; it’s eternal hope for our future. And, that is what I prefer to be the focus of my Olympics experience. It’s not gold, silver or bronze. It’s priceless.
Writingbolt's Creation 
The Masked Price of the Olympics
Tags: 2022, athletes, Beijing, China, commentators, covid-19, crisis, editorial, entertainment, fame, friendship, glory, incentive, IOC, medal, media, Olympics, opinion, peace, perfection, politics, pressure, psychology, publicity, racehorses, rehab, Russia, safety, scandal, sponsors, spotlight, together, truce, unity, weather, winter, winter olympics
***
This year, 2022, there is sufficient buzz about the unpleasant politics and inhumane behavior under the snowy surface of the Beijing winter Olympics. Some people are particularly agitated and claiming this will be a stain on Olympic history. They say the IOC has been corrupted and bent to the sway of profits and commercialism, as if this is something new. With so much focus on the global economy, why WOULDN’T handing the reins to China happen? That’s like asking why the USA gets to call the shots when it comes to who has use and ownership of nuclear weapons.
The USA has plenty of history in inhumane behavior; so now that porcelain China shows some rotting ivories, it’s the enemy of all humanity? It’s Nazi Germany? The IOC, however that works, took the easy road and let the biggest financial source on the east side run the show for two years out of the past twenty-two. Big deal. [Well, if China has any sort of military/financial merger in the works with presently hostile-looking Russia and Mr. Putin, it could be a big deal…for everyone. Yet, that’s just the regular cup of coffee in global news; two nations reaching an agreement that scares the rest of the world like birds on a wire.] And, what happens when the USA or Canada gets the reins, again? What if someone digs up dirt on the west side? Ooh. I’m shaking in wonder.
Certain nations refused to send political figures to Beijing as a sort of boycott, trying to make a statement. China supposedly responded by attempting to appear innocent of any crime in the public eye…and re-using a song from the previous Olympics for one of their world-unification displays. [I thought that was rather tacky.] And, regardless of what people in suits and ties fail to agree upon, the games go on with so many highly (and some poorly) trained athletes risking their lives in more ways than one to get a slice of fame, income and glory, branded with logos and sponsorships, stalked by cameras. Is it any wonder any one of them crumbles under the pressure?
Under the clouds of racial and political discontent, there are the same athletic struggles and stumbles seen year after year; athletes, sometimes, just failing from lousy weather/course conditions. If I go back and look at every Olympics season, I’m sure to see someone suffer some sort of emotional, psychological fracture. One “perfect” athlete, in particular, chose to make a spectacle of herself by driving drunk. Another turned to violence against a competitor. Others suffer some sort of shocking health crisis which I doubt any sponsor wants to advertise and/or fund; it reminds me of those ads for the “wounded warriors.” The “racehorses,” who get pumped up to the highest level of pressure for the entertainment and gambling of others, go from the spotlight to rehab and misery; and we just keep moving on from season to season, sending more “warriors” to the slaughter. Fun!
Just as I am writing this piece, I am watching the national news representative(s) repeatedly stab a particularly dazzling, beautiful, fiery blonde starlet with icy shards of doubt and discouragement for making one mistake in one race of one event in which she is eligible to compete. Who, other than myself, thinks she will have a psychological breakdown, especially after being spotlighted for coping with the grief of losing a parent? Come on, humanity! Show your shining star some compassion!
Idiots, with your stupid repetitive questions about her one lackluster performance! Shut the freak up and let her ski! I’m giving you a 98% deduction for being near-complete morons. You’re not even worthy of being complete morons; you’re still imperfect. What separates you from complete morons? No one knows. Live with that. Or, better yet, get yourselves involved in some stupid cancel-culture scandal and just go away.
Most of the time, most seasons, the real disasters faced by “star” athletes get washed out by the talk of technical errors, medal counts and the general push for tourism, advertising the host nation and other vacation venues around the world…because, it seems, whenever it’s Olympics season, it’s also vacation/travel season. Everyone is pushing everyone to get out there, explore the world and fuel the global economy, including those sponsors who are placing bids on all the young (and a few not-so-young) racehorses otherwise known as Olympic competitors. So, what’s the big deal with one host nation having poor ethics and making faulty promises in the big scheme of commercialized competition?
Personally, if I wanted to boycott an Olympics, I’d refuse to send my nation’s athletes as well as my political elite. Just skip the games, completely. Sorry, athletes, your insane amount of rehearsing, physical training, rehab, building up the hopes of sponsors and promotional efforts were in vain. You have to understand that politics got in the way of you enjoying the spirit of global peace and friendly competition. That is…if the Olympics ARE a source of global peace and friendly competition.
How friendly is competition so strongly operated by commercial sponsors? How friendly is competition in which athletes run the risk of ruining their bodies for life just to get a tenth-of-a-point edge above their competitors? And, how are athletes from every nation that can send them supposed to feel the unifying spirit of the Olympics when their every move and breath is under scrutiny and threatened by questionable leadership?
If I was a competitor in the Beijing winter games, and someone filled my head with all of the political unrest circling the host nation, not to mention the prevailing concerns over general health and the whole COVID-19 scare, I’d be sufficiently afraid to even set foot in China. One wonders what gives so many the courage to compete, considering the circumstances. Is it all concern over finances? Is an athlete’s paycheck from temporary, fleeting stardom worth the risk, better than getting a regular job? [And, if that last bit is true, what does that say about the global economy? It sucks? Jobs, in general…suck?] Is it like a $100 gift card to get a not-very-effective vaccine shot? Are fears for safety and security washed away by financial promises from gambling sponsors? And, how is the competition still fun when so much is “riding on the line” and a tiny mistake can separate stardom from “nothing?”
Once upon a time, the Olympics were a truce between warring factions of the world, a break from the usual conflict over land ownership with the hope of dissolving animosity with fair and non-lethal competition, a little amusement to break up the quarrels over who makes a better king or emperor and who gets to enslave the people of a land that looks like easy prey. They were not the deadly contests of Roman gladiators. No one was being thrown to the lions. And, no one mistreated the lions for sport or commercial gain.
If you look at recent Olympics, you might see a few casualties who are essentially lion food when they leave the host nation. Of course, there are also those rare champion, legend stories of athletes who suffer horribly one year and then pick themselves back up to win some sort of medal or prize in another Olympics. But, those are truly rare cases. And, the media like to make everyone watching think anyone who breaks their body into a million pieces or suffers the big bad “C” can recover and be the next shining star, be that next contender to wear a suit covered in the logos of financial backers who all want a piece of the glory achieved by one fragile human being.
So, you see, while some are so furiously concerned with politics and inhumane treatment THIS year, we are neglecting the racehorses who often enough suffer just as badly. Some might be kept in prisons and/or forced to work under unpleasant conditions. But, even the most prized athletes are coming out of the shadows of their training spaces to expose equally troubling secrets, sometimes years after they were shining so brightly in the spotlight. And, it wasn’t a high-ranking political figure who deserved the blame; it was someone on the training staff.
The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics are nothing special; they certainly are not as shiny as the 2008 edition. But, I have yet to see a single Olympics in which everything went perfectly or was completely innocent and entertaining. Every year there is something that leaves me a little sour. On that note, I don’t aspire to appear in any Olympics competition…but I’d sure love to be in that stadium at the opening and closing ceremonies, befriending people from around the world who share my passions, ideally initiating friendships that I can carry with me the rest of my life.
The best of every Olympics comes in the little moments you see happen between athletes from competing nations, when two individuals, working so hard to earn the most coveted medal, share friendly words and affectionate gestures. Differences fold under the emotional weight of relief. The temporary rivals know the fight is over, and friendship is free to begin. And, that is the true medal, the real prize of every Olympics games. You can’t capture it with a drone or cellphone camera. You can’t wear it around your neck or on a nylon jacket; you wear it in your heart. No sponsor can claim credit or take any money from that. It’s the best of humanity; it’s eternal hope for our future. And, that is what I prefer to be the focus of my Olympics experience. It’s not gold, silver or bronze. It’s priceless.