I already miss the Olympics. The daily dose of world’s best vs. world’s best shined as never before.

The Winter Games are a couple years out and obviously still the Olympics, but my lack of experience in luging, skiing and figure skating usually moderates my interest in athletes toiling in the snow and on the ice.

So I will have to wait for the 2028 Summer Games, coming from my old neighborhood … more on that below.

The 2024 version of world sport did not disappoint. Others surely watched more coverage or delved more deeply into a single event than I did. Nevertheless, I was often mesmerized by the planet’s most elite athletes performing at their highest level and the attendant drama of the competition between them.

Whether on the track, in the sand, on the court, under the Eiffel Tower, around the velodrome, atop Tahitian waves or on the streets of Paris, this batch of summer Olympians truly embodied “Citius, Altius, Fortius,” the Games’ Latin motto: “Faster, Higher, Stronger.”

I was an unrepentant fan of our team, too, enjoying not only the performances but especially the obvious: The U.S. team looked like the U.S.

At a time when the mere mention of DEI engenders fevered suspicious among some, the best among us were called to test their merit against the best in the world. The result was a team of colors and ethnicities and cultures and geographies and sexual orientations and immigrant histories all gussied up in red, white and blue from the opening ceremony until the fireworks the last night and at every venue in between.

Dare I say, those of us chanting “USA! USA!” were cheering as diverse a team as there was at the Games, cheering a diversity that transcended petty political and cultural viewpoints that would partition us based on whom we love or where we’re from, that sort of nonsense.

There were issues. The media would not leave a female boxer alone. A nod to Dionysus in the opening ceremonies drew criticism from religious leaders who saw instead “The Last Supper.” The Seine’s water quality was a daily lesson in chemistry as eColi particles spiked in the river.

Still, the sheer power and majesty of the competition drowned out voices trying to make the Paris Olympics something other than what it was: world sport at its pinnacle.

Not that the Games should be free of controversy. Indeed, the history of the Olympics is rife with it, some deadly as in Munich in 1972, and some among our finest moments of sports, as in the 1924 Paris Games — exactly a century earlier — when Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams raced for England as depicted beautifully in the film “Chariots of Fire.”

The Los Angeles Summer Games of 2028 gives me a second chance. I lived in the City of Angels in 1984 when the Games of the XXIII Olympiad came to town. I was among many Angelenos who predicted freeways would be hopelessly clogged, beaches choked with humanity and the Hollywood Hills simply overrun. So we spent a couple weeks away from the city.

My friends who stayed said Los Angeles was just fine and the Games … spectacular. So much for my forecast of flooded freeways, et al.

So, yes, I’m making plans to be there in 2028.

I’ll be cheering not simply for the diverse athletes in red, white and blue, but for the beauty of competitive sports at the highest level, regardless of the winner.

Perhaps you have some favorite moments from Paris. Mine include Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s complete mastery of her race, the 400 meter hurdles; long jump gold medalist Tara Davis-Woodhall leaping into the arms of husband, Hunter Woodall, a three-time Paralympic medalist himself; American Cole Hocker’s upset win and new Olympic record in the 1,500 meter run with his teammate, Yared Nuguse capturing bronze; USA gymnasts Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles bowing to honor gold medalist, Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade; the French fans shouting “Allez!” (Go!”) each time their countryman, Leon Marchand, winner of four gold medals and setting four Olympic records, popped out of the water on his way to winning the 200 meter breaststroke; and, on the Games’ penultimate day, America’s Steph Curry making four 3-pointers in the last couple minutes of the men’s basketball gold medal game, propelling the USMBT to victory.

So I wait for 2028, comfortable in knowing that the U.S. Olympic team will bring its best to Los Angeles. And it will look like us, too.

This story was published by Nebraska Examiner, an editorially independent newsroom providing a hard-hitting, daily flow of news. Read the original article: https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2024/08/19/spectacular-games-for-a-team-that-looked-like-us/

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