D. None of the Above: Now that the Olympics are over, we can go back to ….
By Daniel Dunaief
Sports resides somewhere near the center of the currency of communication in our house.
In fact, recently our daughter, who is a gifted back row volleyball player despite just clearing five feet tall, and her brother, who is a lifelong baseball player, exchanged amusing anecdotes.
Our daughter attended a minor league baseball game with her friends. In the middle of a close game, she wondered aloud whether, with runners on first and second base and no outs, the batter would bunt.
“Huh?” one of her friends responded. “Why? What are you talking about?”
She tried to explain the strategy, but gave up after it was clear that her friends were more excited to go out together than they were to inhale the drama of a baseball game.
Her brother was watching Olympic volleyball with his friends. They didn’t understand much about back row hitting or trying to spike the ball on the second hit.
Our family enjoyed the parts of the Olympics we watched and, of course, discussed some of our favorite events.
One of mine was the 1,500 meter men’s race. All of the build up described the fierce on-the-track rivalry and off-the-track trash talking between Norwegian Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Brit Josh Kerr.
The spotlight followed them from the moments before the race through the starter’s gun. While this one competition might not settle who is the fairest of them all, I mean, the better runner, it would give one of them a gold medal, presumably, and, perhaps more importantly, bragging rights.
Ingebrigtsen dashed off to the front of the pack, setting a blistering pace while maintaining what looked like a business-like attitude.
But then, a funny thing happened on the way to the expected finish. American Cole Hocker snuck around Ingebrigtsen’s left side, finding a higher gear and accelerating towards the finish. Kerr pushed towards the line as well, even as American Yared Nuguse closed the gap. At the end, it was Hocker first, Kerr second and Nuguse third, a mere hundredth of a second behind Kerr.
Oh, and Ingebrigtsen came in fourth.
It was such a delightful unscripted moment, particularly after humility seemed to be in such short supply between the favorites.
There are a few things we will not miss. We didn’t need extreme close ups of athletes who are doing as much in their chairs waiting to compete as we are watching them. At one point, Simone Biles, whose name you might have heard a few thousand times over the fortnight, took off her warm up jacket, which we all saw on TV. The announcer, lacking any other detail to share and exhausted from overusing the word “redemption,” decided to announce that she was taking off her jacket. You stuck the landing on that insightful observation, buddy boy.
So, now, here we are. The Olympics are over, the flame is out, the days of trying to avoid sports headlines until after watching the prime time replay are over.
We can go back to reading the important news of the day, assuming we can find some.
What’s changed in our house? Well, our dog is much happier. He probably has nothing against the Olympics, but we shouted at the TV much more often than we typically do during a baseball or basketball game.
We can consider the what ifs in our own lives. These Olympians train every day, eat the right foods, try to stay on a sleep regimen and forego other id-driven moments.
And then, on that day, they might win by a hundredth of a second or less.
At their best, they can inspire us, the way a new year sends people into a list making frenzy. If they can be so amazing, maybe we can, too.
Or, perhaps, we can figure out what else to watch or binge watch on TV. Oh, and there’ll be a winter games, assuming there’ll be a winter, in Italy in two years. Those athletes are undoubtedly doing everything they can to shave another hundredth of a second off their times.
