Tim Barto: What happened to the Olympics?

By TIM BARTO

When our children were young and the Olympics were happening, my wife and I temporarily disbanded our draconian limits on television viewing. The new rule stated that the tube could stay on all day as long as it was tuned to Olympic coverage. 

My wife integrated geography and art into the homeschool curriculum, working with the children to make paper flags of different countries and string them together to be hung in the family room. We set up mattresses in the family room so the kids could be comfortable and even fall asleep as needed during late night broadcasts. For the opening ceremonies, we put out a spread of as many different foods from around the world as we could prepare (or buy locally), all in an attempt to promote respect for other countries and cultures. A flag bearing the Olympic circles and red, white, and blue USA lettering hung on the front porch. 

We screamed and cheered, especially during dramatic swim competitions between the Americans and Australians. We sometimes admitted to boredom during long-distance footraces or endless luge runs. We had to consult a dictionary to find out what dressage meant, then pondered whether the horses in equestrian events also received medals. But for a couple of weeks every four years our family had a blast immersing ourselves in internationals athletic competition. 

The kids are now grown, but my wife and I still enjoy watching the Olympics. So, last week, while we were out of town on a business trip, we opted to sequester ourselves in the hotel room, order some food, and watch the opening ceremonies for the Paris 2024 Olympic games.

Blecch.

This commentary isn’t about the desecration of the Last Supper scene that has so many people outraged, to include Christian Parisians (it’s been encouraging to see they still exist) turning out to sing hymns in public squares. It isn’t about that because we were so confused and bored by the attempted spectacle that we missed the whole Last Supper debacle, reading or checking in with the kids and begging them for more photos.

We didn’t even hear about it until the next day when fellow believers expressed righteous indignation and apologists cited quickly conducted Google searches to defend the world renowned Feast of Dionysus and, of course, obese blue people.

The opening ceremonies were an utter mess, full of faceless Frenchmen running through sewers and across rooftops, dancers who couldn’t dance, singers pausing the whole show to sing, and androgynous threesomes sneaking off to apartments to do whatever androgynous threesomes do; none of which had anything to do with sports and everything to do with overdone attempts at artistry and pushing an in-your-face agenda to mandate that we all accept the latest in woke ideology. 

The Paris Organizing Committee, it seems, chose to proudly display that the rumors of the decline of western civilization are, in fact, true. 

Perhaps I’m old and stuck in my ways, but I would like to concentrate on the athletic part of the Olympic Games. I can accept a little cultural exposition from the host country, and the opportunity to bring together people from every corner of the world in peaceful gatherings should always be welcomed, but shouldn’t the focus be on sports? 

Bringing the best athletes in the world together for vigorous but peaceful competition is intriguing, and it’s fun to watch their incredibly dedicated training methods and learn of their personal stories and hardships. The networks love to feature these emotional stories, and I confess to enjoying many of them. 

The dedication of these athletes is quite remarkable. My own athletic prowess never came close to approaching even a remote shot at qualifying to compete at the Olympic level, so it adds to my appreciation of what these athletes can do. 

My daughter’s experience so many years ago really brought this into focus. She was a rather good little gymnast and, like most parents, my wife and I dreamed of seeing her compete at the elite level. Little did we realize what that entails, until one day when her coach asked if she could speak with us after practice about our daughter’s attitude.

We were shocked because our daughter, a natural introvert, always did what the coach told her to do, and she never spoke back to her. Heck, she rarely even spoke at all during practice. She listened, nodded, and attempted the skills being taught. So, my wife and I were extremely perplexed by coach’s request to talk.

When we sat down after practice, coach asked us if our daughter was ready to get serious. “Is she mouthing off or not working hard?” I asked, because those are the two issues most of us who coached young athletes have to deal with when it comes to malingering and lollygagging athletes. 

Coach laughed and then realized why we looked so concerned. “Oh no, no, nothing like that. We need to determine if she’s serious about becoming an elite level gymnast. She is a wonderful student, but I am not able to coach her at a higher level. If she wants to compete at the highest levels she will need to find a new coach and gym—…” 

My wife and I looked at each other with confused looks on our faces before coach continued.

“… —in another state.”

More confused looks.

“Elite gymnasts train twice a day, six days a week, and your daughter is almost eleven years old, so it’s getting late. It may already be too late because most of those girls start when they’re five or six.”

The good news is that our daughter wasn’t in trouble, but now we had to ask her how serious she wanted to get with gymnastics, and as much as we dreamed of seeing her standing on podiums with medals around her neck, we weren’t ready to pack up the whole family and move to the Lower 48. She declined, content to flip, spin, and twirl in her local gym … and her parents were quietly relieved. 

The moral of that jog down memory lane is that these are incredibly talented –- and more often than not, even more incredibly dedicated –- athletes. They are, quite literally, the best in the world at what they do, and it’s a beautiful thing to watch them do it.

If that’s not your thing, so be it, but a couple billion of us appreciate their talent and dedication, and we enjoy rooting for our country’s representatives while witnessing all the emotions and drama that come with intense human interaction.

Watching the debauchery unfold last Friday night, however, brought to mind all the negative aspects that made many of us rabid sports fans abandon the major American sports leagues; the catering to a vocal minority that turned the NBA, NFL, and MLB into platforms for the latest in wokeness. 

Olympic officials had an opportunity to show the world a celebration of athleticism and the coming together of nations; instead, they chose to offend and propagandize. NBC could have edited the footage to take out the particularly offensive parts, but decided to further an agenda. 

One then wonders how the Los Angeles Organizing Committee will respond in four years; whether they will try to outwoke Paris 2024 or focus on athletic competition and international harmony. I, for one, am not holding my breath. It’s getting uncomfortable for many of us to watch sports because we have to acknowledge that those running the show do not share our values. 

We will continue to concentrate, instead, on the exceptional human performances. 

Tim Barto is a regular contributor to Must Read Alaska, and is vice president of Alaska Family Council. As a teenager, he used to dream of being the world’s greatest athlete, just like Bruce Jenner, but that dream took a weird turn.