Spending two straight Saturday nights with my group of friends watching the Olympics made me realize how big this event is. I don’t consider my friends to be huge sports fans, but there we were, living and dying with each of Shani Davis’ skate strokes, Apolo Anton Ohno’s daring passes, and Lindsay Vonn’s grimaces as she flew down the ski slopes.
With the exception of Super Bowl parties, I’d never been around a group of people so captivated by one spectacle on television as I have during these Olympics. It’s a new atmosphere with everyone rooting for the same team. The room is united because everyone has the same home team to support. It’s where patriotism comes together with sports–the perfect combination.
But we shouldn’t be watching the Olympics just to see Team USA rack up the medals. If we are, we’re missing the entire point of the Games. While it is nice to see USA at the top of the medal standings, the Games are really about the stories behind the athletes, like Johnny Spillane winning the first-ever Olympic medal with silver in the Nordic combined for Team USA or Canadian figure skater Joannie Rochette giving a heart-wrenching performance two days after the death of her mother.
Among friends, it’s a learning experience to hear someone say, “I’m pulling for Germany in this one because my grandparents are from there” or “I’m rooting for Great Britain because I visited there once and really liked it.” I learned more about some of my friends’ heritages and backgrounds by watching the Olympics than I had in the prior few years of knowing them.
If we put on our nationalistic blinders and pay attention to only what Team USA is doing, we are depriving ourselves of an opportunity to see outside of the normal, everyday lives we live. After all, the Olympics only come around every four summers and every four winters. The athletes are doing something they have spent their entire lives training for, and it’s only right that we show them respect as they represent their country, whether it be the United States or Canada, Russia or Korea, or Germany or Australia.
Daniel Gallen can be reached for comment at [email protected].