How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Olympics
It is February 12, 1980. Over the past decade, the United States has seen stagflation, gas lines, a president resign in disgrace, a catastrophic war end, and, exactly one hundred days before, 53 Americans taken hostage in Iran. The 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid began the next day. The U.S. Olympic Hockey Team, a squad of amateurs, defended the U.S. at home against the Soviet juggernaut and prevailed, 4 to 3, on their way to gold in perhaps the greatest moment in sports history. It marked the dawn of an era of neon leggings, Reagan optimism, and a Top Gun love of country.
Fast forward thirty years to February 12, 2010. The U.S. is again emerging from a difficult decade. Two wars, a near-depression, and political gridlock have exhausted the country and left citizens and columnists questioning our leaders, culture, and political system and admiring those of China. The 2010 Winter Olympics at Vancouver began that day, and I eagerly hoped to see the U.S. regain some of its swagger and optimism.
Throughout the next two weeks, I watched the U.S. hockey team capture the nation’s attention by beating the heavily favored Canadians in the preliminary round, prevail against long odds to reach the gold medal game, silence a raucous home-town crowd by forcing overtime in the last half-minute against the locals, and…lose.
There was no miracle this time. The game ended and brought us all back to reality. Yet, despite the loss, the bad conditions, terrible coverage, and nonstop glitches, I’m happier than ever with the Olympics.
Is it wrong to imbue the Olympics with such importance – as a test of country? Maybe I should be content with appreciating the athletic feats and moving on. Plenty of reasonable people, including former Olympians, feel the geopolitics of the Olympics hurt the Games. Charles Banks-Altekruse, a former Olympic rower, wrote an op-ed this week in the New York Times (“Give the Olympics a Home”) saying just that.
Banks-Altekruse was forced to settle for a Congressional Gold Medal instead of an Olympic Gold because he honored the U.S.’ boycott of the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow. Yes, Olympic politics are frustrating, trivial, and a nuisance. Yes, cities build unnecessary venues, lose money, and sometimes – as we saw with these Games – don’t have the weather conditions to properly host the Games. A permanent site for the Olympics, he argues, would insulate the Olympics from geopolitical and financial excesses.
But he misses the larger point of the Olympic Games. The Olympics are more than just a venue for international athletic competition. They are more than a site for cultural exchange. The Olympics present a chance for a country, particularly the host country, to make a statement to the world through its athletes.
Canada made such a statement by owning the ice – and the Games in general – and showing the world it is more than just our nice northern neighbor. China made a statement in 2008 by announcing its arrival on the world stage with its Olympic size and dominant performance. The Cold War boycotts of 1980 and 1984 were statements of protest. The 1980 Miracle on Ice was a statement to the American people that there would be brighter days ahead. I was hoping for that same statement in Vancouver.
I’ve moved on from the loss, and I am comforted by the fact that one in three Americans watching TV at the time tuned to that game. It was the highest rated sports event after the NFL season and BCS National Championship Game. A hockey game, of all things.
The beauty of the Olympics is that it simplifies a complex world into wins and losses, where I root relentlessly for the U.S. against anyone else, and where the measure of success is how many times one’s national anthem is played. The U.S. didn’t get a new miracle on ice, its anthem played, or a rebirth of hope after its overtime defeat, but there is enough cause for optimism that the entire country was watching and cheering on the underdog Americans that day. For a day, it was fun being the underdog again.
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