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So here we sit, engulfed, engaged, enthralled, even enchanted by the 27th Olympiad: The 2000
Summer Olympic Games in Sydney. They are everywhere, permeating every aspect of our society,
every nook and cranny of our waking hours; sixteen days of glory, sixteen hours a day, sixteen
thousand ways of selling us something we didn’t think we needed.
The television show is an addictive drug. The media moguls, playing the part of pusher, hook us
on the first night with the incredible high of the Opening Ceremonies. There could be a riot in
our neighborhood and we would still be ’warm and fuzzy’ in our own heads after
listening to the gentle, encouraging drumbeat of the studio anchor.
We are compelled to tune in night after night, no matter what sport, for the media has found the
magic formula to keep us coming back for more. And no, it’s not the national pride of an
American medal hunt, and it’s not the double-edged controversy of drug use and IOC
backroom politicking. And only to a small degree is it the competition itself, for the results
of who won and who lost is but a fleeting footnote lost or forgotten over time to all but the
historical bookkeepers. (Can you recall the winner of the Olympic Marathon in Atlanta in
’96 or the Men’s 200 yard Freestyle swim in Barcelona? Of course not.)
But there are stories of unique human interest, often fraught with courage and valor and
insatiable tenacity that are woven through the Games like a fine silk cloth. And the media, NBC
in particular (who is the ’official’ network this year), in an effort to recoup its
gazillion dollar investment, has not only kept a keen eye out for those seemingly small yet
powerful elements of human drama, they have produced them into slick, tear-jerking vignettes
that move even the most hardened and cynical sports fan.
And good for NBC. It’s about @#%^&! time they figured out what sport was all about: People.
Extraordinary people doing extraordinary things. The track, the pool, the court, the field, the
gym—those are all just places, just venues that serve as a physical locale for athletes to
elevate themselves above the seething masses by exhibiting the skill and courage they have
honed to a fine edge. It is the athletes themselves who tell the tale, and not just the
winners.
In fact, historically, it has been the losers, the ones who display such compelling elements of
human virtue in their defeat that become the symbols for what the Olympic ideal is supposed to
be. Sometimes the media is there, milking it all the way to the ratings bank. And sometimes
they miss it completely, thus leaving it to exist in the eyes of personal witness and in the
hearts of those who create the act itself.
Legend has it that when Julie Moss crawled across the finish line at the 1982 Hawaiian Ironman
Triathlon, helping to ignite the fires of a new sport that made its debut in Sydney this year,
the executive producer from “ABC Wide World of Sports” and the race director were both
inside the media tent, arguing over rights fees when an assistant came pounding on the door,
saying they had better come out and watch this young girl who had just collapsed at the finish
line.
Nowadays, the networks are not so easily caught with their cameras down. They know where to look
for the stories because they know the people who can tell them best. Or at least they try. The
pre-event “film-them-in-their-own-home” thing has gotten a little too ubiquitous. It
is expensive to send camera crews around the world covering every potential medal winner, let
alone athlete-with-a-story-to-tell. But the truth is, every athlete has a story, a good one.
Otherwise they would not be competing in the pre-eminent sporting event on the globe.
Things happen though, things that no one can predict and it is up to the cameramen, the
reporters and people who know where to plug all the wires in to get that story. If the media has
but one social responsibility, one altruistic duty in their coverage of the Games, it is to
seek, find and film but one moment of raw, untainted and unfettered bit of human courage so
moving to us that the picture of that athlete, overcoming such travesty of consequence,
resonates in our mind for days on end, empowering us maybe just a little, to be better than we
are.
Each story will affect a person in different ways. One man’s epic saga is another’s
forced dribble. I cannot say for sure whether NBC did their job covering this Summer’s
Olympics. Maybe their accountants can. Maybe you can. I do have a thought though, and it is
resonating in my mind still, some days after I heard it. It was a response to a question asked
of Russian swimmer Alexander Popov, arguably the best 100-meter swimmer in history, when a
reporter asked him why he shunned all the new hi-tech, super-fast, laboratory proven,
sponsor-developed swim suits. Hell, Popov doesn’t even wear a cap on his full head of
hair.
His answer was more than slightly prophetic, reeking of raw simplicity, an accidentally
metaphorical attack on all that is crass and commercial in these hallowed 16 Days of Glory.
“I have my own skin,” he said. And indeed he
does.
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