The Olympic Games - A Personal Journey

My first memory of the Olympics is actually the “Moscow, Moscow” song from the 1980 Games. I was only four or five at the time so its stretching the memory bank quite a bit but that song has remained with me my whole life. As has the images of the funny dancing dudes kicking their legs into the air with their hands on the ground behind them.

Next came Los Angeles in 1984 and my main memory of those Games is the guy wearing the jet pack and ‘flying’ around the stadium during the Opening Ceremony. To a nine-year old watching a lot of Star Wars and Buck Rogers at the time it seemed like science fiction was becoming science reality. I wanted a jet pack myself and couldn’t understand why Mum and Dad wouldn’t relent. I do remember Jon Sieben’s heroics in the pool though, in taking down The Albatross, Michael Gross, from West Germany. My father was a keen swimmer himself so we watched a lot of the open air swimming pool and we loved the story of our David beating the world’s Goliath.

By the time the Seoul Games rolled around in 1988, I had an absolute love for the Olympics and was now old enough to stay up and watch them. I was in awe of everything about them and was thoroughly enamoured with what I believed were the ideals of the Olympic movement and the notion of bringing the world together and all that. I think I even did a few school projects over the years on the Olympics and knew all the history from the Ancient Greeks to Pierre de Coubertin to Jesse Owens and to Munich.

I guess I was pretty impressionable at the time, as all kids are in that age bracket. But the Olympics and the athletes seemed like gods to me and the competition and pursuit of excellence seemed so pure, so authentic. That changed in an instant though. Just as my sense of the Olympics was at its highest level.

I had watched in awe as Ben Johnson smashed the world record in the 100m and loved the fact he was quietly spoken in contrast to the loud mouth American Carl Lewis. For a few days, Ben Johnson was my hero. The embodiment of the Olympic ideal. From the slums of Falmouth, Jamaica he’d conquered the world. But it all came crashing down soon after. Everyone knows the history. Johnson failed a dope test after the race and was caught taking steroids. And then swiftly sent home while the Games continued around all the controversy.

I was guttered. I was hurt. I was just plain lost in trying to comprehend it all. To this day, I can still remember watching the coverage of Johnson being escorted through Seoul Airport on his way to a flight back to Canada. But most of all I remember the confusion. I just couldn’t understand it. The why and the how.

It might sound a bit dramatic, but a little part of me died that day. The part of me that was so in love with sport and the ‘pure’ notion of competition. The part of me that was in love with the Olympic movement and what I thought it stood for. My beliefs and feelings most definitely changed that day. From its highest point, it’s been in decline ever since.

The decision in 1990 to award the 1996 Games to Atlanta over Melbourne and Athens certainly didn’t help. As a teenager with little experience in the ways of the corporate world, I heard plenty of talk about commercialisation winning out in the end. The International Olympic Committee had merely chased the most money rather than choosing the best bid. The fact Atlanta housed the headquarters of the Olympics sponsor, Coca Cola, being the most obvious point.

Then came the taking of a Sociology of Sport subject during my uni days. To this day, I am thankful for taking that course, as it made me question all sorts of ideals that we hold about sport, especially in Australia, and showed me the power of myth-making and the notion of so-called ‘common sense’. Of course, the IOC and the Olympics were a major part of those studies and a spotlight was put on all the corruption, commercialisation and corporatisation that is involved.

The Sydney Games, however, evened my thoughts out a little. After being so high in my childhood, my feelings had turned to cynicism and distrust through my early adult years. But the “Best Games Ever” changed that a little and I thoroughly enjoyed those two weeks, albeit from the other side of the world in the United States. Finding any information about Australians and their results was tough, but I was still able to watch the ‘Mean Machine’ and their air guitars as well as The Race won by Cathy Freeman.

Since then, the Olympics have probably been a bit of a sideshow for me really. Perhaps it’s just getting a bit older and having more ‘serious’ responsibilities such as kids and mortgages and co, but the last couple of Games have just come and gone for me. I’ve certainly sat down and watched plenty of the events while they’re on and it’s been good to have a break from the endless procession of reality TV on our screens (or are the Olympics the ultimate in reality TV?).

The media hype and the resultant nationalism/jingoism does annoy the hell out of me though and makes me cringe at times. As does having to watch and listen to commentators who obviously know very little about their designated sport or the competitors. Overall, I probably ‘witness’ the Games rather than ‘enjoy’ them, but at the same time still take pleasure in the spectacle of athletes competing and some of the great stories that do arise. Especially those ‘surprises’ involving athletes from non-mainstream sports.

And so here we are on the day of the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 London Olympic Games. The Games are obviously front and centre all over our media and we’ve had weeks and months of hype around the organisation, the venues, the security and the transport. It’s like a broken record though. We get this in the weeks and months before every Games. Although with Athens it was probably a little justified.

My point is, that even the “Best Games Ever” were shrouded in controversy for years before and it rose to an absolute crescendo in the weeks before they commenced. I guess when you have thousands of journalists in town with nothing to report on yet, everything gets blown up and magnified far too much. Come the first race, the first game, the first match, it’ll all blow over and the athletes will be the main focus once again just as they should be. I’ve got no doubt these Games in London will be the same.

The controversies around commercialisation and branding are another matter. For me anyway. We’ve already seen stories about butchers and bakers having to cease having displays in their shops and even a London cafe having to drop the O in its name for the two weeks to call itself Cafe Lympic. Not too mention the exclusion zone around the Olympic Precinct where ‘Branding Police’ will be out in force stopping anyone from wearing certain clothing and certain brands. It’s all so bloody ridiculous and my cynicism and disgust rises again just as I’m starting to look forward to the actual event being on and the actual athletes being on show.

I guess that’s the story of my Olympic experience and my Olympic 'journey'. It’s a love-hate thing. It excites me at times, but annoys me at others. I put my faith in it at times, just for it to deflate me at others.

But will I be watching the Opening Ceremony early tomorrow morning and then hours and hours of it over the next two weeks? You bet I will. After all, it is the Olympics.

EDM.