Notes on the 30th Modern Olympic Games

In a few hours, we’ll bid so long to another summer Olympics.  I always hate to say goodbye; I sorely miss them when they’re gone.  The concept of being that good at anything is so impressive to me; I have to think that we all feel the same type of inspiration. 

I’ll leave this subject with a couple of notes, both of them items that appear to be gone forever in the televised coverage of the Games:

Gone are the days of controversy.  We didn’t detect a nanosecond of an American calling himself the greatest (or even good), or suggesting that one participant was sure to win or lose, or, God forbid, of bringing up an issue that could have the most remote political implication.  In interviews in which two people from the same team were interviewed on camera, we could plainly see the one who was not speaking looking expectantly and fearfully at the other, as if to say, “Please be careful; PLEASE don’t say anything wrong here.”  Perhaps the 1968 Games in Mexico City was the high-water mark of using the Olympics to make such statements.  London was distinctly the low-water mark.  It’s not a great reflection on our times that this needs to be such a sterile experience.

Gone are the days of making an even feeble attempt to cover all the sports.  I know we at 2GreenEnergy have readers all over the world, and I’m deeply appreciative of that fact.  I don’t know anything about the coverage that you people in Belarus received.  In the U.S., we saw huge amounts of the sports in which our athletes excel, thus the dozens upon dozens of hours of swimming and women’s gymnastics, as an example.  Am I surprised by this?  Not in the slightest.  American audiences want to see Americans win, and advertisers want to make damn sure Americans are watching whatever Americans want to watch. 

The casualty for some of us was that 17 days later, we saw essentially zero equestrian events, archery, judo, table tennis, wrestling, badminton, shooting, taekwondo, etc.  There were 26 events, and we saw a minute fraction of them.  Those of us who wanted to come to understand something about the culture and athletic strengths of those in most of the other countries on Earth were cut off at the knees.

In any case, like many of us, I’ll miss the games, and eagerly anticipate Rio in 2016. 

Maybe by then new designs in vertical-axis wind turbines will have become an event.  Hey, could happen….  🙂