I must confess I really didn't get it at first. At the ultimate of her Olympic experience, Simone Biles went goofy in the head and couldn't get through with that for which she'd prepared five whole years.
Not just four, in a regular Olympiad. Five. Life has its rhythms, and this one was disrupted.
Had these Games been held on time last year, would she have performed flawlessly, as she had before? But there was extra time to focus on her, extra pressure, and that tells in ways we cannot always know. She got the 'twisties,' as they're called, and lost her way in the way athletes do when something happens and suddenly, they cannot cope; the putting 'yips' are comparable, missing a field goal, too.
It all got to be a little much. The world closed in and did not relent. Yes, the pommel horse and the rings and all were the same, but there were no supporting cheers, no family, nobody else from home.
They weren't just in another part of the world: They were in a completely different world with major stakes but without time to adjust. Some did fine with that. She did not.
Yes, I supported her when she dropped out of the competition, and yes, I cheered like hell when she came back and got a bronze medal on the beam. And not just because she was an American. Because she had won the greatest fight of all, the greatest challenge: When everything you have just shuts down and you find a way back, a way through the labyrinth of reconnecting mind to body. Gratefully, happily, incredibly, she got it done anyhow.
But it took until the closing ceremonies for me to completely get it. Because I saw--and if you were watching, you saw it, too--a fellow American also lose herself completely. It finally hit her. It started to sink in: This really happened.
Raliegh Washington, a member of the gold medal U.S. women's volleyball team, just plain lost it right then and there in the Olympic Stadium, while everybody else was strutting and jiving and grinning so wide you'd think their teeth would come right out of their mouths; in pride, in joy, in relief. Not her. She just couldn't handle it anymore.
Not because she'd lost. Because she won. The impostor of victory, as Kipling would put it, is just as incredibly powerful as the one of defeat. She sat right down on the ground and bawled her eyes out. She stared at that gold medal and, I'll bet, thought about all the sacrifices she had to make to get it--including for a whole extra year while the powers that be were trying to figure out how, or if, to pull these Games off.
All of that washed over her. It all got to be a little much. Gratefully, happily, incredibly, the world closed in and did not relent, this time in celebration and amazement.
So she pulled off to the side of the road, so to speak, and took it all in. The moment was passing. The time would soon be gone. That, too, must have tugged at her. The whole Olympic experience feels like it won't ever end, but in fact it lasts just two and a half weeks. Then the stage closes and your claim to fame must either be renewed, or it disappears.
The moment one prepares for so long often comes and goes in a flash. The greatness of life, too, is, like tragedy, often unfair like that. But having done it, you can relive it whenever you want. You often don't realize how much it's changed you until later. But it has. It does.
More sober forces were wanting to cancel these Olympics, to give in to the virus and cry uncle. Then you watch these kids--they are kids, you know--strain and gain and give the ultimate of themselves, come what may, and you reconnect a little something about yourself: Not just as you used to be, but as you still are, whatever you have left. And you conclude something that wants to come back now: Life is for living, living wide open, being all one can still be. (But people have to get the damn vaccine! Come on!)
Yes, it was about money already spent and the astronomical amounts that would be lost: The cynicism behind that can't be hidden. But it was also about fulfilling commitments and backing the commitment these kids had made. Enough nonsense has already happened to politically bar otherwise innocent competitors, as it had in 1980 and 1984, when boycotts held great athletes back. That all came and went and, looking back, what was it really for? What did it accomplish?
Accomplishment: That was their North Star in Tokyo and for some of them, it will also be Paris in 2024. Unquestionably, the results of these Olympics were skewed by the extra year of waiting, when some grew more into their bodies and some grew out, when hybrid training had to be done haphazardly but with all the more devotion and intensity. Records were still broken. They still amazed us, and themselves.
And they turned to each other with respect. American Katie Ledecky lost races in which she formerly was a shoo-in to the Australian Ariarne Titmus. They hugged when it was over. But Ledecky never hesitated when asked about retiring: No way. A new game is on. Let's get after it. See you in Paris.
The Qatari and Italian high jumpers who decided, right there on the spot, to share their victory and each claim a gold medal--in a year, who will really care?--embraced not only each other but the deeper meaning of the Games: To honor each other's humanity and greatness. It isn't like every little kid, with badly-fitting uniforms hanging off of them, getting a medal at a Little League tournament: They didn't just show up. The whole world was watching.
That's why I like the closing ceremonies, bizarre as they were this time without crowds, when people march in as countries but walk out as the friends they have made. Compared with the rest of the planet, of course, they're not a very large number of people. But they showed us again that if you dig deep enough, enough is there. On a level playing field, there is much to be gained, even if you don't see it at first.
Onward we go, to Beijing for the Winter Games in six months now, and just three years to go before more Summer Games. I hope none of them got sick; that would be too cruel. But they were happy to take the risk.
Part of the human adventure is about that, and I for one thank them for indulging. We need to watch more good things done in good ways with good intentions. We can't have it too quickly. We're still bouncing back.
Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask indoors. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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