Stop complaining about the Olympics.
Honestly. If it isn’t your cup of tea, fine. Enjoy the next week watching reruns of ‘Beat Shazam’, ‘Claim to Fame’, and my own not-personal favorite, “The Real CSI: Miami.”
I don’t claim to know anything about table tennis, equestrian, fencing, or canoeing slalom. The only dive I have ever attempted off of a diving board is a cannonball that cut the amount of water in the pool by half.
But every night for the last 10 days has involved my wife and I turning on the television and watching some of the most compelling sporting events I have ever seen.
Like a lot of people, I am a football, basketball, baseball kind of guy. Last year I was tasked with covering University of Hawaii men’s and women’s volleyball for the Star-Advertiser, so my interest in the sport has increased exponentially.
But it’s the beginning of August. The NFL season has technically begun with the first preseason game, but for as much as I fantasize over sitting down to watch seven hours of commercial-free football on Sundays starting in September, the idea of watching Caleb Williams standing on the sideline for the Hall of Fame game watching Tyson Bagent and wondering if he would even make the two-deeps of a UFL team isn’t something that grabs my attention.
Baseball is in the dog days of summer, and when a team like my Seattle Mariners leads a division despite starting seven players hitting .227 or worse in a game last week, it clearly isn’t quite time to take America’s pastime seriously yet.
There’s a giant void in the sports schedule, and as someone whose entire life revolves around sports, the Olympics are something worth enjoying for two weeks.
I assume I don’t have to explain the excitement that comes with watching every USA men’s basketball game. Kevin Durant, the greatest Olympic basketball player of all time, is playing alongside LeBron James, the greatest NBA player of this generation, who at 39, is still somehow as good and consistent as ever.
Stephen Curry, who literally changed the way the game is played with his unmatched shooting prowess from the 3-point line and beyond, is somehow playing in his first Olympics.
Durant, Curry and James are all older than the oldest U.S. Olympic gold medalist in men’s basketball ever in Larry Bird, who was 35 when the Dream Team changed the way we thought about Olympic basketball.
They might not be blowing teams out by 50+ as the Dream Team did 32 years ago, but that’s because the international game has grown exponentially, making these Olympic game as exciting and dramatic as anything I watched in the NBA playoffs.
Greatness in sports is something you don’t forget. Michael Jordan’s six NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls is the primary example, but Patrick Mahomes is the newest contender to the throne, and good luck betting against him this year after what he pulled last season winning with a receiving corps that wouldn’t have started for the Washington Huskies in the College Football Playoff.
We get to see that in a multitude of ways these two weeks. Katie Ledecky won the 1,500-meter freestyle gold finishing before any other swimmer was even in the same TV screenshot.
No female American Olympian has won as many golds as Ledecky’s nine, and that count might only get higher as she now sets her sights on the 2028 Olympics in her home country.
Simone Biles’ redemption story is nearly in the books after winning (at least) three more gold medals in women’s gymnastics. The way she propels herself into the air and the height she gets on the vault looked like the major leagues compared to every other woman who was fighting for a participation trophy.
Greatness comes in many forms and not everyone gets the storybook ending they dream of. Carissa Moore is arguably the greatest female athlete ever to come out of Hawaii. She won gold in the inaugural surfing event at the Olympics in Tokyo and is a five-time world champion.
Her dream for a golden repeat ended in the quarterfinals in tough waves at Tehaupo’o, where she had been surfing all year in preparation for this event, which is her last — for now.
Her tearful farewell on the shores of Tahiti brought every bit the same amount of chicken skin as watching Biles on the balance beam trying to lead the USA women to a team gold.
Moore came up short in these Olympics, but that won’t be what we remember four years from now. We’ll remember the grace and poise that she showed throughout her entire career, whether she was holding a gold medal or not.
I won’t watch another world swimming competition, floor exercise routine or badminton match for another four years. But as I sit here staring at my TV screen still trying to figure out if Noah Lyles really did win this men’s 100-meter sprint in a photo finish, I do know this:
These Olympics have been incredible to watch. And if you don’t like it, don’t worry, “NCIS: Origins” is debuting on TV after these Olympics are over, because that’s what we really need in this country … another NCIS show.
