Olympic Spirit, My Ass
The 2010 Winter Games began last week in Vancouver. The media has been inundating us with stories of ‘Olympic’ proportions for months: which athletes have suffered setbacks during their training, which athletes are the best hopes for the U.S. to medal, what conditions are like on the mountains in Vancouver. The problem is that hardly anyone remembers why the Olympics were created in the first place.

The modern Olympic games were created to unite countries. They gave countries the chance to compete against each other in a friendly environment rather than go to war. The Olympics have become one of the biggest sporting events in the world, yet many people have no idea that the Olympics themselves are actually part of a bigger framework known as the Olympic Movement. One of the primary goals of the Movement is to help build a better world through sport. The Olympics are defined by values that embody this goal: excellence, friendship and respect. According to the Olympic charter, the five interlocking Olympic rings represent “the union of the five continents and the meeting of athletes from throughout the world.” The Olympics are about building a better world and uniting countries.

Too bad everyone’s forgotten that!!

The modern day Olympics began in 1896. Since then, the Games have been used as a propaganda tool to further the interests of certain political interests. There was the hostage crisis in 1972 during the Munich Games: Palestinian terrorists took several Israeli athletes hostage; the standoff ended with nine hostages being executed and a handful of other people killed in the process. Did you know that several athletes boycotted the 1936 Berlin Games because of the Nazi regime? And that several countries boycotted the 1956 Melbourne Games because of the Suez crisis and the 1976 Montreal Games because of apartheid in South Africa? The list goes on – you get the picture.

We’ve gotten so caught up with other aspects of the Games that we’ve lost site of what the Olympics are all about. We concentrate more on who’s favored to win, who’s designing the outfits and other meaningless things that we forget about what really matters. Look at what happened at last week’s Opening Ceremonies. Despite all of the amazing moments that went off without a hitch, all anyone is talking about is the malfunction with the torch lighting that caused a slight delay. The Canadian government alone contributed $20 million to make sure the Opening Ceremonies were unforgettable. And all anyone is talking about is some stupid pillar that got stuck? Come on people!

The world has an opportunity to unite and come together once every two years under the umbrella of the Olympic Games. Once every two years we have the opportunity to compete against other countries in the name of sporting excellence and global friendship. Once every two years we have the opportunity to put divisiveness aside in favor of unity. With everything that’s wrong in the world, I have to wonder why we don’t advantage of this opportunity rather than piss it away.