An Olympics to remember

By Mark Hopkins

How can everything turn out so right when everything seemed so wrong? The Rio Olympics had two strikes against it before it even started. The venues were not ready, the bay was tainted with all manner of vile substances and even the dorm rooms for athletes were not fully furnished. To add to the series of problems, a portion of the Russian Olympic team was banned from the games because of drug use in the weeks before the opening ceremonies.

Still, as old Yankees catcher Yogi Berra would tell you, "It ain't over until it's over." The Rio Olympics was looking at its last strike when it hit a home run. Who could have asked for more? The U.S. is bringing home a truckload of medals, including some that were expected and some that could only be described as shocking surprises. Michael Phelps took his horde of gold medals into the stratosphere in swimming. The U.S. gymnastics team won the gold medal with Simone Biles and Aly Raisman placing first and second in the all-around. And, the U.S. had a number of athletes like Kristine Armstrong, Kayla Harrison, Lilly King and Virginia Thrasher who burst onto the international scene with gold medals in sports like cycling, judo and air rifle. Worthy of note is that Simone Manuel became the first person of her race to win a gold medal in an individual event in swimming.

Lest you missed it among the avalanche of medals won by USA athletes, several smaller countries like Singapore, Uzbekistan and New Zealand are taking home gold medals as well. In the U.S., we celebrate our athletic successes state by state and town by town. In those small countries, they declare a national holiday and a gold medal winner becomes a national celebrity whose face is on every billboard and whose name becomes the first name of every new child born of his or her gender. Such is national pride in countries whose names we only hear every fourth year.

The Olympic Games bring people together from many different places and circumstances to lay aside their differences, and in spectacular event after spectacular event declare their commitment to a single noble ideal. That ideal is that we all can live together in harmony, in peace, and within a human bond that we all share. The Olympic Games affirm both human diversity and human universality.

Every four years for just a short two weeks, we are elevated to the heights brought to us by the world's young people who express for us the idealism we once had, the innate desire in all of us for becoming more than we are, maybe more than we can be. Ah, to recapture the dream just for a few short weeks may be enough to help us keep our eye on the goal, a better world, a better country, a better hometown, a better me.