Watching

So, yeah, once again, I’m watching the Olympics.

Well not right now, of course. Now I’m typing. But I have been watching the Olympics and I will once again be watching the Olympics when I’m done with this, even though I have Other Things To Do.

Because that’s how it works.

I enjoy the Olympics. I know this is a terribly unpopular thing to say these days, and I even understand why. They’re being held in a nation whose human rights record is even worse than most these days, where political dissent is a crime and where an autocratic ruling elite is currently allied with the guy threatening to start Europe’s land war in three quarters of a century. They’re coated in a thick layer of sleaze composed mostly of bribery, doping, and exploitation with a smattering of other crimes large and small. They never make the cities where they are held better for having held them. I get it.

I also understand that the human rights record of most countries (including the US) is not something that gives people much ground to criticize others, that we have our own autocratic wannabe dictator here in my country (currently sending threatening messages to the insufficiently worshipful from his hideout in Florida), and so on.

But all of that is beside the point, really. The abuses of the world will continue whether I watch the Olympics or not, and I am perfectly capable of separating out those abuses from the athletic achievements on display. This may come as a surprise to a lot of people, but the world is a big, bright, colorful place and viewing everything in black and white means you miss a lot.

So yes, there are issues.

But yes, there are the athletes. And that’s why I watch.

I tend to enjoy the sliding sports like luge, bobsled, skeleton, curling, and hockey and the weird sports like slopestyle, halfpipe, speedskating, and the aptly named and totally bizarre Big Air event more than I enjoy things like figure skating or downhill skiing, but even so I’ll watch them all.

Because the athletes make the games interesting.

I like how the weird sports athletes haven’t absorbed the cut-throat attitudes of the more traditional sports like figure skating – how they genuinely seem to cheer for each other, and mostly they look like they’re having fun. I like how the curlers are such a motley crew of people who couldn’t possibly be competitors in anything else – you know that, like curlers everywhere, they probably sat down for cards and beverages after each match. That’s how curling works. I like how the luge and skeleton athletes seem like they have already distributed their worldly possessions to their heirs and will be mildly surprised to have to retrieve them if they make it back home after their events.  I like hockey in general.

The Olympics don’t come around very often, and given climate change I suspect that the Winter Olympics in particular are not long for the world.

So, yeah, I’m watching.