Olympics fill summer sports lull
After a stubborn, temperamental June, it can be said with relative confidence that summer is finally in full swing. We now begin our tentative and openly giddy transition outdoors, stretching and shuffling out into the light like groundhogs. Sleepy, a bit disoriented, relying on muscle memory to recall how a human being is meant to walk without the benefit of a hoodie and a scowl, we join together in communal appreciation of those precious few months when casual conversation doesn’t have the weather to fall back on anymore.
Along with the vitamin D binges and barbecue sauce recipe secrets (it’s kiwi), Independence Day usually marks something of a dead spot on the sports calendar, a fleeting reprieve of sorts beginning at the conclusion of the NBA Finals and running until the first NFL preseason game in early August.
It’s right about this time that the highs of both the NBA and NHL playoffs have crashed almost simultaneously, baseball is only at the halfway point of its relentless season, and the wild ratings rush of professional football is still a reasonably distant concern. For a few brief weeks, the consciousness of the otherwise vigilant sports fan becomes lax and fragmented, shifting from Wimbledon to the Red Sox and back without purpose or commitment, as if to allow for a breather before the constant cell phone buzz of injury updates and intermittent break room confrontations at the office become a way of life again.
No such luck this summer.
We’re in an election year, folks, which means it’s time for that devastating media behemoth known as the Olympic Games to roll through town and take a few dollars for its trouble. The deafening pitch of fanaticism surrounding Euro 2012 has only just subsided, and already the world is gearing up for a second shot of technical excellence and nationalistic controversy from the oldest and most storied athletic event we’ve got. Every four years, we spend about two weeks rooting for athletes competing in sports that we never follow otherwise, and we lose our minds doing it.
Sure, there will be plenty of familiar faces on site (LeBron James, Lionel Messi, Serena Williams, etc.), but for the most part, those who tune in to the Olympics later this month will do so for the opportunity to cheer with frightening abandon—and launch into comic-book-level fits of rage—during swimming relays, 100-meter sprints, ping pong standoffs and fencing riots. We’ll welcome back all the characters from the old seasons, the ones we watched all those years ago, the ones we fell in love with and then largely forgot about until just now. And then we’ll meet the new crew and do it all over again.
We’ll cheer on rowers and skaters and real live ninjas. We’ll swear we hate gymnastics, and then break someone else’s coffee table when a 15-year-old Iowan gets fleeced by the judges on her uneven bars routine and staggers off the floor in tears. We’ll get a bullet-point rundown of the basic rules of the decathlon on our screens before an event, feel satisfied that we are informed and seasoned spectators, forget every rule immediately, and wait for the chance to spill beer on the person next to us when the scores are updated and medal hopes become a statistical impossibility. We will do this and we will (ideally) rejoice.
And a fortnight later, when the grounds shut down for good in London, it’ll almost be like the whole thing never happened. Even in a place like Oregon, which hosted the Olympic Trials last month, the games are built for maximum impact across the largest audience possible and with no margin for error. It is spectacle in the purest sense of the word, no more or less than that, a high-stakes, high-drama exhibition whose infrequency—like the European Championship and World Cup—lends it an air of consequence that is unlike any annual athletic competition. The Olympics get a very tiny window every four years to cash in on their unique package of entertainment, espionage and human interest, and they’re ready to open up shop now. They couldn’t care less if you were taking a breather.
Who is this new talent???? Wow! What a wonderful way of delivering words! It is a pleasure reading his column. One does not want it to end, and when it does, there is a sense of disappointment and leaves one craving for more! Congratulations Vanguard! Great pick!