Written by We are nearly a week into the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. It has already proven to be an Olympics like none other in the past. The best surprise is the lessons the greatest athletes in the world are teaching us. It’s OK to make yourself vulnerable. Winning isn’t everything.
According to the International Olympic Committee, Olympism is about excellence, friendship, and respect. The stated goal is to build a better world. Is it working?
In many ways, the Tokyo Olympics are not off to a good start. Especially for us Americans. Ratings are down. Nobody knows where to watch stuff or when it is on. We’re still scratching our heads about why they went through with it. And, worst of all, The USA isn’t dominating everything.
I grew up during the Cold War. Everybody who is my age can tell you where they were when the USA upset the Soviet team in the “miracle on ice” hockey game at Lake Placid in 1980. For my generation, the Olympics symbolized our struggle against the Russians. After the fall of communism, American exceptionalism flourished. Nothing exemplified this better than our Olympic medal count.
Strength meant winning. Winning meant getting the gold medal. Our heroes were the athletes who won a lot of gold medals and set the most records. Think Michael Phelps. Think the Dream Team.
Toughness meant giving your all to go for the gold medal. Think Kerri Strug.
Excellence, friendship, and respect? Those are great too, but only if we are winning gold medals. At least, that was my mindset until this Tuesday. The two biggest American stars going into the Tokyo Olympics are putting gold medals aside and showing us what it means to be an Olympian.
Katie Ledecky and Simone Biles were the two main headliners going into the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. They both were heroes for the Americans at the Rio games in 2016. NBC’s coverage on Tuesday night featured the two stars, but what happened was not part of the original script.
Ledecky’s night started with a final in the 200-meter freestyle event, billed as a rematch against her new rival Ariarne Titmus from Australia. Titmus bested Ledecky earlier in the week in a thrilling 400-meter final, causing her coach Dean Boxall to go viral with his spirited celebration.
There is certainly no “cold war” between the USA and Australia, but they have been the two best countries in the Olympic pool over the last decade. I remember Michael Phelps and Chad le Clos staring each other down in the green room before competing in the London 2012 Olympics.
The problem with playing up this rivalry is that Ledecky and Titmus seem to like each other, putting those Olympic values of excellence, friendship, and respect ahead of any battle of strength. The 400-meter final was more of a celebration of the overall talent in the sport than a rivalry between two foes, as Ledecky finished fourth with Titmus narrowly defeating Siobhan Haughey from Hong Kong.
A little over an hour later, Ledecky was able to win her first gold medal in Tokyo by winning the first-ever 1500-meter freestyle competition over teammate Erica Sullivan. After an exhausting race, Ledecky could not contain her joy in seeing Sullivan win the silver medal and went out of her way to share the spotlight after the race.
Biles is helping redefine the meaning of strength. News of Biles dropping out of the team competition blew up our phones twelve hours before the broadcast aired. We all knew what happened, but we weren’t able to fully understand the context until we saw it play out.
Biles is the GOAT, the greatest gymnast of all time. Everyone knows this. But, something has been off with Simone for the past couple of months. We don’t know what it is, nor is it any of our business. It could be the effect of competing for USA gymnastics while carrying the lingering effects of the abuse by Larry Nassar. It could be the pressure of pleasing her audience by continuing her career to compete in Tokyo and then agreeing to continue training after the one-year delay caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. It doesn’t matter, Simone wasn’t OK, and she dared to admit it.
In her book Braving the Wilderness, social scientist Brene Brown equates bravery with having a sense of true belonging. She writes, “True belonging requires us to believe in and belong to ourselves so fully that we can find sacredness both in being a part of something and in standing alone when necessary.”
I found it courageous how Biles returned to the competition after withdrawing and standing with her teammates. Rather than gutting it out in an attempt to win gold, she stood aside and rooted her team on to an impressive silver medal victory. Simone beamed with joy as the gymnasts she mentored handled the situation well and carried on and happily displayed her silver medal on Instagram, giving credit to her brave teammates.
It was refreshing to see the positive reaction to Biles’ decision. Michelle Obama and Michael Phelps publicly supported her decision. People seem to understand now that it is OK to say you are not OK. Of course, there are detractors. Talk radio host Charlie Kirk called Biles a “selfish sociopath” and a “shame to our country” while lamenting that “we are raising a generation of weak people like Simone Biles.”
Instead, we need to be congratulating this generation of brave people who do not get caught up in worthless battles of strength against weakness that my generation obsesses over needlessly. Value excellence, friendship, and respect over rivalry—silver medals together over gold medals alone. Pride over dominance. Values over ratings.
Do you believe in miracles?