In lead up to the Olympics, Rio's health risks, crime risks, lack of infrastructure, funding, and competency all over shadowed the athletics. Then Russia's entire team was almost kicked out, but was allowed to compete because the IOC is corrupt and has no spine. Since the games started, the athletes made us forget all of that. Team USA has looked amazing. Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky may as well be merpeople, they swim so fast. Simon Manuel made history. Kerri Walsh-Jennings got yet another Olympic medal. The Final Five stole our hearts. When you are in a bar and Jamaica's Usain Bolt runs in a final, the entire room stops what they are doing to watch the fastest man alive. Then these moronic uber-jock swimmers "got robbed" and we looked at crime again. Oh no! Ryan Lochte says he was robbed at gunpoint. Rio is the worst place in the world!
It turns out they were just drunken idiots who vandalized a bathroom, and were held by a security officer (with a gun) until an agreement was made to pay for the damages. Now that has overshadowed everything, from the awesome athletics to the genuine concerns that should still exist about Rio, such as the British athlete who legitimately was mugged, or the severed leg found floating on the sailing course. The later is particularly disturbing, because the police's response that "It was probably someone murdered by the drug gangs, who was dumped in one of the rivers that flows into the bay," seems rather nonchalant.
Why is it so impossible to be able to talk about or concentrate on more than 1 thing at once with the Olympics? Surely, we as logical, thinking creatures can comprehend the following ideas all together:
- Locthe et al are idiots;
- Rio still has a lot of crime, legitimate infrastructure concerns, and health risks;
- Not all people in Rio are criminals. A majority are great hosts, though some of their fans have no exactly acted in a welcoming or sportsmanlike fashion at times;
- The IOC is still extremely corrupt;
- Olympic athletes are amazing and awe-inspiring.
It has been an interesting two weeks. Hopefully, we will look back on the Rio Olympics as both a triumph of sport and a cautionary tale about idiocy, crime, or corruption. We should always be able to concentrate on more than one thing. When our worldwide tunnel vision latches on to one hot-button issue, or one TMZ-esque story, we miss everything else that could tell us so much more. Whether they be inspiring or disturbing, these things are still important parts of the entire scene.
