Gannon Knight Perspective

     I will freely admit this: I’m a fair-weather sports fan. And what better weather than the Olympics? When the years roll around to the Summer and Winter Games, I hop right on the patriotic-yet-world-celebratory bandwagon with the majority of the public.
     I let my heart swell with the temporary joy of the opening and closing ceremonies and allow my spirits to rise with each triple lutz of the figure skaters or race with each mad dash of the track and fielders. I also develop seasonal infatuations with the athletes.
     My 2006 love for speedskater Apolo Anton Ohno faded as the Turin games came to close and my sights returned to my last weeks before high school graduation; my passion for all things Olympian rekindled two years

later as I ended a summer internship and swimmer Michael Phelps caught my eye. Ohno’s now back at the forefront of my Olympic emotions; I may be fickle, but I’m certainly cyclical.
     This Olympic-sized love only blazes, suitably, when it is an Olympic season. While this seems to be the case for 99 percent of the viewers and media, I can’t help but think of the athletes, trainers and families who make the games their lives – imagine dedicating almost 100 weeks to curling, only to have audiences give even the tiniest bit of crap about it for 16 days.
     That has to be brutal. These men and women have poured years of their lives – or in the case of gymnasts or figure skaters, the entirety of their lives – into something that gets only a fleeting moment in the limelight.
     They are passionate. They are proud while they maintain graciousness. For the most part, too, it seems to me that these athletes remain down-to-earth. The checkered trousers worn by the Norwegian curling team can tell you the athletes at least have a good sense of humor.
     Curling may be a silly example, but it’s a good one. Take, for instance, me, who didn’t even understand the rules of the sport until two days ago – and I think I’m in the minority. But when it comes to the winter games, curling ranks as a favorite among friends and acquaintances, whose excitement reaches fevered highs, borne mostly of curiosity, when the sport is broadcast. Which is pretty much constantly.
     My roommate probably described our Olympic fever best when, as we watched the opening ceremony, she described what she felt as “world pride.”
     This is a phrase that sums it all up nicely – while we’re all competing for our respective nation’s teams, there’s something very powerful about the nations of the world coming together to play.
     The meshing together of cultures and languages in (mostly) friendly competition and the unity of good sportsmanship is enough to make a person’s heart glow as brightly as the Olympic torch.
     I wish that we could feel that way more often about the world in which we live.
     I wish for that, and for a pair of those Norwegian curling trousers.