So, What Did We REALLY Think of the Olympics?

First things first.  I love the Olympics!  I really do.  As always, there were some incredible moments from the 2020 summer games.  My top favorites were Molly Seidel winning bronze in the marathon, MyKayla Skinner winning silver in the vault (so glad she finally got a chance!), watching Caleb Dressel swim and Athing Mu run.

But there were just a few things I wasn’t too happy about.  Let’s start with the obvious one…

What is the deal with women’s beach volleyball???

Okay.  They were great!  They won gold!  But did we really have to see every single game???  

Nothing against beach volleyball.  But there were so many sports we didn’t see any of… like boxing, handball, table tennis… not that I necessarily wanted to see those, but I also didn’t want to see hours of beach volleyball every night.  What in the world would make it so popular that it was on prime time coverage all the time?

One article I read claimed that it’s popular because it’s a fast-moving, action-packed game.  Okay, fine- but then why didn’t we see any men’s beach volleyball?  I didn’t even know there was such a thing as men’s beach volley ball until I looked it up.  Guess what the men wear-  CLOTHES!  Shorts and a tank top, while the women wear bikinis.

The women are not required to wear bikinis, but they claim it’s the most comfortable outfit.  I seriously, seriously doubt that.  Every time they went diving to the ground, I thought how uncomfortable that sand must be against their sweaty skin.   I would love to know how many people actually liked ogling the women while watching volleyball, and how many were bothered by this.  It does seem like we see it every Olympics, so apparently not enough people are bothered enough to change it.

Another explanation, besides the fact that they didn’t make a spectacle of themselves in skimpy clothes, of why we didn’t see any of the men’s beach volleyball, is that the US men’s team didn’t medal.  Which brings me to the next point…

The NBC coverage was too gold medal-centric.

I remember watching the Olympics as a kid with my mom and sister, and hearing all different countries’ national anthems at the medal ceremonies.  If an American won a silver or bronze medal, we would see their medal ceremony, even if it involved an athlete from another country winning the gold medal.

We loved hearing the different anthems, and commenting on how some were pretty (Canada) and how some sounded strange (China.) I remember my mom explaining to us that Chinese music sounds different to our ears.  Seeing athletes from all different countries getting their medals was a normal part of the Olympics for us.

I get that NBC can’t cover everything, but I wish we could have seen more medal ceremonies.  Can we really not bear to see another country’s flag flying higher than our own for a brief moment?  Or is it that we don’t think winning a silver or bronze medal is worth televising?   It would have been nice to see some of our athletes receive their hard-won medals, even if they weren’t gold.  Just think!  If they had shown the US gymnastics team getting their silver medals, we would have seen the Russians win gold and hear the stirring notes of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto fill the air…

Wait.  What?

If Russia was banned from the Olympics, why was Russia at the Olympics?

If you watched the Olympics, you’ll know that Russian athletes competed under the name “Russian Olympic Committee” instead of “Russia.”  Russia was banned from competing because they were caught in a state-sponsored doping scandal.  What did that involve, exactly?  WELL…

For the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia (the host country) was determined to dominate.  They implemented a mind-boggling scheme where they provided banned substances to dozens of athletes, and then drilled a hole in the wall of the testing facility, allowing them to pass tainted urine samples through the wall in exchange for clean samples.  None of the Russian athletes were caught doping, and the Russians achieved their goal of winning the most medals.

When the story came out, Russia received a ban until December 2022- until that time, no athlete can represent Russia at the Olympics or World Championships.  Seems pretty fair… but Russian athletes proven to be clean (supposedly) can compete for the “Russian Olympic Committee.” Instead of their national anthem, Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto was played at their gold medal ceremonies.   So much for the “ban.”

I’m not sure what the solution is.  On the one hand it’s not fair to punish all the Russian athletes.  Some of the gymnasts were just kids in 2014, so clearly weren’t part of the doping scandal.  On the other hand, is it fair to athletes like Ryan Murphy, who said he believed he was swimming in a race that’s “probably not clean” after winning silver to Russian athlete Evgeny Rylov’s gold in the 200 meter backstroke?

The “ROC” was just Russia, thinly veiled.  Maybe certain athletes could have been allowed to compete as a “neutral” athlete?  I know that many, many athletes participated in races that weren’t clean, and it’s not just the Russians.  Plenty of US athletes have been busted for doping, and those are only the ones who have been caught.  I like to consider everyone innocent until proven guilty, but it’s hard after what happened in Sochi.

In conclusion…

This post could go on and on.  I haven’t mentioned Simone Biles, how weird it was to have no spectators, or the fact that I had to search and search to find out how Jacob Riley and Abdi did in the marathon… it was a strange Olympics with mediocre prime time coverage.  But I’m pretty sure we can say that every four years.  It was still fun to watch, and now we have the Winter Olympics coming up in six short months!  In the meantime, I’m enjoying a much, much earlier bedtime.

Do you agree or disagree with anything I mentioned?

Is there something that bothered you about the Olympics that I didn’t talk about?