The 2016 Rio de Janeiro summer Olympics kick off today, and by many accounts, it’s shaping up to be a five-ring circus.
The Russians may or may not be allowed to compete thanks to widespread, state-sponsored doping. Some athletes have bowed out over the threat of the Zika virus.
Watersports competitors have been told to keep their heads out of the water, thanks to dangerous levels of pollution, and the whinging from the world’s press about the state of the Olympic village is surpassing the personal bests set in 2014 in Sochi.
A recent Angus Reid poll found 31 per cent of Canadians say the Games are more about corporate sponsors than athletics and a majority said they wouldn’t want their friends or family members to go compete.
Add in the perennial scandals over bribery, cost overruns, security concerns, diversion of a nation’s badly needed resources in the name of a two-week party and the politicization of amateur sport, and it’s easy to give in to some Olympic-level cynicism.
Despite it all, we maintain the Olympic spirit and it’s not because we’ve got a sudden interest in synchronized diving.
The Games are a source of tremendous human stories that will inevitably eclipse our petty moments of criticism. When an injured athlete is helped across the finish line by a competitor, when displays of international co-operation and sportsmanship turn athletes into role models, the games become worth far more than their weight in scandal.
Yep, there will be problems, but we promise, these aren’t the things you’ll be thinking of when those golden moments happen.
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