The Olympics are over and the freedom of my evenings is restored. The same cycle seems to play itself out in every games: I begin excited and ready to watch every event that I can, but by the end I don't even really care anymore, yet I find myself turning them on mindlessly every night all the same, guilting myself into the four hours of coverage on the premise that this only takes place once every four years (or two, depending on your point of view). But the Spice Girls mercifully have broken the spell and I can have my life back now.
It was a good Olympics overall. The Americans did much better in the track and field portion than four years ago, which was nice to see. The marathon, for both genders, was a bust, but really that reflects the actual conditions of American marathoning these days. Swimming was fun. Even diving was somehow exciting (I know I have ranted about this before, but why in the world do they show diving every night? Are there that many people who care about diving?).
NBC's coverage was pretty bad, but they start in a hard place. When everything already happened at least six hours before you show it, it is hard to keep a lid on the results. The ESPN website was merciless in terms of early posting, even NPR was known to fire off results without warning their audience that, hey, this stuff hasn't been on television yet. Not that NBC did much to help their cause. The worst example was the preview of Missy Franklin reuniting with her parents after winning her first gold medal that aired immediately before the gold medal race. Took a bit of the suspense out of the affair.
My favorite part of this year's games, though, was the absolute domination of the sprinting events by the island nation of Jamaica. Their control of the contest was so total that even my wife, for whom humility is perhaps the chief virtue, found herself smiling along and cheering as Usain Bolt self-proclaimed himself a legend and Yohan Blake put up his bear claws for the camera screen. She had hated Bolt in Beijing, thought he was nothing but cocky. But the results speak for themselves. And cockiness, when matched with performance, can almost be endearing. And it got me wondering whether the Jamaicans' inordinate success (an island of less than 3 million people has four of the fastest six human beings of all time) might not have something to do with their swagger.
Compare Usain Bolt pre-race to Tyson Gay, an American sprinter. Bolt looks like he is having fun, like he enjoys the sport, like he knows he will win. Gay looks like Harrison Ford's character in Air Force One after Gary Oldman as a Russian terrorist makes him choose between his wife and daughter. It is hard to run when you are wound that tight. Bolt, by contrast, is loose and springy. An event like the 100 doesn't require the same sort of mental concentration as the marathon, or even other shorter distances like the 400, which involve some level of strategy. Basically, you just line up and run as fast as you can. This is part of the appeal of the short event--it is so primal. Of course there is more to it than that, but with the amount of training these athletes put in for their 10 seconds of work (cue that great ESPN commercial with Bolt) I can't imagine the race is anything other than muscle memory doing its job. Maybe in such an event it helps to be cocky and loose. This is only a theory, but I do know that there is a lot to be said for believing you can win. Obviously this has limits. I could line up against Bolt with all the confidence in the world and still get beat by 4 seconds, but the best athletes in any sport just know that they are better than everyone else out there. The Jamaicans had that look in the short sprints; the Americans didn't. Maybe then the winner isn't such a surprise.
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