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Olympics fans deserve their own medals
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Published: August 25, 2008
And the gold medal goes to … us, for surviving another Olympics broadcast marathon.
Even if you live in a cave (and I don't mean a man cave), you couldn't have escaped Michael Phelps et al. this year. Olympimania is a predictable four-year eruption of chest-beating sports nationalism, made particularly relevant this year by its residence in Beijing, and amplified in NBC's television coverage.
Come to think of it, the coverage has sounded pretty loud this year because it's emanating from so many different directions.
By using all of the cable, high-definition, mobile and Internet channels at its disposal, NBC has probably given die-hards as much Olympics (and mind-numbing commercials) as they can tolerate, although I have friends who act as if they are glued to the couch in front of their home-entertainment center for these two weeks. The 12-hour time distance between Beijing reality and our TV reality doesn't help.
One of my buddies has a different TV set tuned to each Olympic channel in a different room. He runs from room to room following different events. I kid you not.
I'm not that hard core, but it's not even a guilty pleasure to acknowledge that I've been entranced by the Olympics this year. The constant coverage acts like a drug, making it almost impossible to walk by a TV set without checking to see whether it's rowing, equestrian or target shooting, and how the U.S. team is doing.
All the pundits are weighing in on how the Olympics have reinvigorated the American spirit and brought us closer together in what is proving to be a highly divisive political season. Michael Phelps for president?
I think they're missing the real point. None of us have illusions about what it takes to win in high-performance athletics these days. High-tech swim and track suits, intensive and highly focused training and practice at state-of-the-art facilities, staffed by coaches who can come from any corner of the globe. Then there is the personal coach, who spots a talented 7-year-old and ends up back in his or her home country, a hero, with an Olympic champion 10 years later.
But something else emerges in these hours of TV coverage: the incredible test of personal qualities that comes in these contests. This is the faintest echo of the original Olympics, or so I imagine: the trial for supremacy, the ability to say, "I am the best."
Michael Phelps got it say it eight times. We saw it in the joy of Usain Bolt, hot-dogging it in one race, and then running with all his heart and life in his second world-record dash. It was evident in the growing amazement on the face of Stephanie Brown Trafton as she realized that she had won the gold medal in the women's discus throw, the first American to do so since 1932.
And we witnessed it in the disappointment of Walter Dix, getting a bronze medal after another runner's disqualification while saying to his trainer, "But I lost the race." And in the hidden, private moment of Lolo Jones, huddled and sobbing under the stairs after hitting a hurdle and losing a race she seemed destined to win.
My point is that this desire to excel, to come to the day of sports-god judgment and prove your worth in front of the entire TV-watching world, is what really speaks to us through the Olympics. This is a shared, primal memory of our ancestry, both male and female, of all races and colors, whether you're running in a racing bhurka or a beach-volleyball thong.
I know this for a fact because my wife, who loathes all sports aside from boxing (don't even ask), loved watching this year's Olympics. We thrilled to doubles badminton, began to learn the intricacies of scoring in handball and water polo, and marveled at how female athletes had somehow solved the problem of sweat- and water-free makeup.
And we both felt better watching the Olympics. Better about level-headed young people who didn't seem to be letting it all get to them. Better about the dedication it takes to build your body and spirit up to one specific moment, and how that moment ends up defining you. It's one life after the Olympics if you're a gold medalist -- it's a different life for everyone else.
For us, too. Back to our more mundane viewing habits: no more scoring and judging disputes. No more endless NBC promotions and commercials. No more muting of those commercials.
On Olympic watching, I give myself an 8.5. My start value was pretty low, and watching TV does not involve a high level of difficulty. I can't wait for London in 2012, and my next chance for gold.
■ Dale Pollock, a former dean at the School of Filmmaking at the N.C. School of the Arts, now teaches film there.
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