Soaring spirit of the Olympics

Called the greatest show on earth, the Olympics showcases the soaring human spirit at its summit in multidisciplinary games and sports. The beauty of the competition unfolds in myriad forms of physical ability, skills, tactics, resourcefulness of mind, endurance or perseverance and the indomitable will to prevail in the toughest of competitions and conditions. So keen and close are the competitions that the victor and the vanquished feel deep in their heart the rival is but an alter ego. This is where lies the uniqueness of the Olympics.

Unfortunately the world today is not at peace with itself where fractious politics gets the better of the cardinal virtues of fellow feeling and human bond. The so called moral guardians of nations have no qualms about fuelling conflicts and violence across wide swathes of the globe because that serves their interests by way of making parties dependent on their arms, military hardware and financial helps. Such a conflict-ridden world needs the message of amity, peace and friendship in rivalry as upheld in Olympic villages and competition venues. Political leadership of the host country often tries to exploit the mileage of hosting such a gala sports meet. Both political bonhomie and commercial interests can be served through astute diplomacy on the side of the great event. But the competitors bother little about who their opponents are.

Well, a partisan crowd may at times behave unsportingly as did those in the gallery during the Olympic football match between Argentina and Morocco. Then the supporters of the host country simply gave a poor and deplorable account of themselves when they booed and even threw a water bottle at British cyclist Thomas Pidcock, the ultimate winner of the cross-country mountain bike race, which he parried with one of his hands only seconds before crossing the finishing line.

The Olympics 2024 marking the return of this prestigious event to the land of the father of the modern Olympic games, Pierre de Coubertin has kicked off under the shadow of serious security concern. Sabotage carried out in the small hours of Friday disrupted France's much vaunted railway system on the big day. Bomb scares also triggered evacuation at airports across that country on the inaugural day. Then internet cables were severed causing disruption to internet services in France. Such attacks bring back the memory of the Munich massacre in which 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team at the 1972 Munich Olympic games along with one German policeman and five Palestinian militants of the Black September, a militant organisation, were killed.

Certainly, the French President's calculation for reaping political mileage has misfired against the backdrop of the election that barely secured his presidential positions and the strategic withdrawal of candidates by the New Popular Front (NFP) comprising the Socialist, Green and Communist Parties undercut the expected majority of the far right National Rally (RN) of Marie Le Pen. Europeans have not only adversaries in migrant militants but also in hard-line political opponents who are capturing newer territories such as Italy.

The Paris Olympics could be the right occasion to send a message of peace and universal brotherhood against the rising ultra-right voices in Europe. However, the acts of sabotage amid the tight security clamped on the city have cast a shadow of doubt on the maintenance of the liberal and democratic values in that part of the world. Not only politics but society is getting uglier, brutal and dehumanised almost all across the world. Israel has been carrying out a systematic genocide in Palestine in defiance of the ineffectual angel that the United Nations has lately become thanks to the United States' unwavering support for the Zionist regime. The assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh by Israeli air strike in Iranian capital Tehran has all the potential of escalating the war far beyond the Gaza-Israel border.

World economy, particularly that of the common people, still finds itself in a moribund state by the successive blows from the corona pandemic and the Ukraine war. Intriguingly, the rich have found it rather most propitious for amassing wealth. According to the Oxfam's latest estimate, the top one per cent of the wealthiest in the world has accumulated wealth by $42 trillion over the past decade. This is 34 times more than the bottom 50 per cent. The average wealth for the rich soared by $400,000 per person whereas it grew by only $335 for the bottom half of the world population.

The rising outrageous inequality has pushed the underprivileged to the fringe and with their back to the wall, they are seething with rage. Events like the Olympics can be used as a good distraction from such gross economic injustice. Contrarily, it can also help foster better understanding between athletes and subsequently the peoples in ways inconceivable otherwise. When an island nation with a population less than a million can be the most successful nation in a game--- rugby that is---winning gold in 2016 and 2020 and silver at this Olympics, it sends a most positive message to the world. The journey of Adriana Oliva Ruano, originally a gymnast at the London Olympics in 2012, to this year's competition in women's trap shooting in Paris is more fascinating than any fairy tale. A gymnastic career-ending injury at the age of only 16 with six damaged vertebrae, she opted for trap shooting at the advice of her doctor and now she is the Olympic champion with a record score of 45 out of 50. 

This is how human spirit at its most excellent triumphs against overwhelming odds and undying hopes in the heart of so finite a structure cross the boundary to infinity to attain immortality. To address the yawning inequality, the world needs a spirit and collective hopes of such an order.

[email protected]