I love the Olympics. I have since I was a kid. I believe in the dream that there are some things that can transcend our political differences and bring people together. The Olympics and Para Olympics hold that promise. Each country sends their athletically best to an arena where everyone knows and abides by the rules. It is exciting to see the best of the best push themselves to be just a bit more.
But unfortunately, in the Olympic games of the present, competition is not just amongst the athletes. There is another game being played out on a different level; an administrative level, with committees, countries and federations. Canada spent over $22 million on the “Own the Podium 2010” campaign. This was to push the idea that Canada would walk away with the most gold and other medals.
Although they mention ‘excellence’, it is very clear that the goal is to ‘win more medals than anyone else’. More = Better. Really? But Canada is not alone. They are riding the wave of ‘bigger and faster and more’ is better. Every Olympics opening ceremony is striving to be bigger and more extravagant than the last. Hosts are unabashed at trying to have the fastest and most difficult tracks and courses ever.
But there is a balance to be struck. Is faster necessarily better? Is bigger always better? Why is more always better? What if better is being able to be human, make mistakes and know how to adeptly compensate or correct a mistake in mid-run?
If you have a sliding track that creates “G-forces that collapse the body, rendering it difficult to control the sled”, as the investigating committee have described the Whistler bobsled & luge runs, it becomes virtually impossible to correct those mistakes. Is that really a better track? Or with skiing, as Lindsay Vonn put it, on the track she skied when she almost broke her back (which was fashioned like the Whistler ones in order to prepare her… sprayed with water and frozen), ‘It was like pond ice’. A host of athletes have been injured in training runs prior to the games, and are now unable to compete. More is not necessarily better. We need to get at the root of what this is really all about…
My solution? Only host Olympics in nations that have virtually no chance of making it onto the podium. A country that sends their best year after year with pride and a sense of excellence and bridge building would make a gracious host indeed. Have every nation contribute funding, according to some financial formula, to pay for the expenses.
Make sure the climate is appropriate for the games whether summer or winter. Have experienced international sports committees oversee the development and safety of the facilities. Have a comment period from athletes, which is taken into account and then respected. If the best lugers in the world dubbed the turn where the recent competitor died as “50-50” in terms of whether they would be able to stay on their sled, and another competitor said she felt like ‘a lemming’ and ‘crash test dummy’, then something is wrong and the athletes saw it very clearly. Allow equal access to all competitors, both foreign and home-based, enough of this ‘aggressively protected home court advantage.’
Maybe the tragic loss of life that cast a dark shadow on this Olympics can be eventually looked at as the beginning of making the Olympics not just safer, but better. That would be a wonderful way to remember and honor this athlete, and to honor all athletes.
