Why Bother With the Olympics?

So many people are turning the channel this year- are we missing something?

“Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the pieces with gold. Gives broken objects a new life and teaches that a break can be lived as a unique event that can be seen as a precious experience. Inspired by this unique concept as well as the upcoming Olympics Games in Tokyo, I created a series of digital mosaic artworks.” February 6, 2020 ( Charis Tsevis)

Are the Olympics broken? Corrupted by corporations, cash and politics? That can sometimes happen, within even the most stolid and enduring institutions.

Are the Olympic Games merely obsolete- a vestige of a bygone day? A relic of a past in which society was more cohesive with fewer entertainment options?

Wal-mart and shopping malls killed Main Street; Amazon came along and killed them all. Video killed the radio star. The internet probably killed the video star, if only by extreme dilution.

Did extreme sports, ESPN and the X Games kill the Olympics?

There is no question that fewer fans are engaged this year. This year’s games has been panned as a low-energy, slow-moving train wreck beset by embarrassments and COVID-19. In spite of the laudable efforts by host-country Japan to go above and beyond to make the 2021 Olympic Games special, “lackluster” is the word that most are using.

The critics have a point: Olympic feats of physicality and skill are meant to stun, to astound, and most of all, to inspire.

Why aren’t they?

Sport is a divine, universal human language. People from all walks of life, and as many disparate backgrounds, of every…