It's rather impossible not to be caught up in the excitement of the Olympics, but it always takes me a few days before I am drawn in as an obsessed spectator with an insatiable interest for sports which I've never before watched or been interested. I got all emotional when the Canadian wrestler hoisted her coach on her shoulders and carried him around the area after she won gold.
Olympic coverage is everywhere - popping up in email spoilers and filling my Facebook and Twitter feed. I've written before in this column about the nature of sport and citizenship. I once wrote a column about a wonderful article by Melvyn Bragg that lauded the role of rules and structure in sport (specially the Rule Book of Association Football) that provides a common ground for people living in different cultures to play together.
The rules of sport are like a constitution and the referees like judges asked to adjudicate the game. But, like any good democracy, it is critical that we ask good questions about the kinds of norms that have been developed over time. In global competitions we have a chance to start national and international conversations about how we should live together in the world. I think the power of these conversations is why the Olympics, while inspiring in lessons of sportsmanship and human endurance, is also an event that gives us pause to ask about the state of the world.
For a very long time critics have asked about the real benefits of bringing the Olympics to their country. Seeing the juxtaposition of a towering Olympic venue against the slums of a community should embarrass national governments. Is it enough to have Olympic infrastructure as a legacy? How can the global community come and go without noticing the state of the place in which they have come to play? The empty stands in Rio should illustrate that there is a wide gap between those who have the means to watch and those who are mere spectators of the passing parade.
Beyond this critical discussion about the costs of mounting an Olympic Games in countries that suffer from serious poverty, these games have sparked other global discussions including a discussion about gender representation.
Social media is abound with comments about the way in which women's accomplishments have been reported. The Chicago Tribune was criticized for tweeting: "Wife of Bears' lineman wins a bronze medal today in Rio Oympics."
And the headline that said: "Phelps ties for silver in 100 fly" with a subheading that said: "Ledecky sets world record in women's 800 freestyle" raised criticism. In a New York Times article by Katie Rogers, in which she mentions both of these examples, she notes that: "According to an analysis released Sunday by three scholars who are working on a book, Olympic Television: Inside the Biggest Show on Earth, female athletes received 58.5 percent of prime-time media coverage during the first half of the Games, compared with 41.5 percent for men." She suggests that this increased coverage is likely connected to the rise of sports including: "beach volleyball, diving, gymnastics, swimming, track and field."
The researcher told Rogers: "If we really want to entirely address the sexism that seeps into Olympic coverage, we need to take a hard look at how we do with coverage of female athletes between the Games. That's the much bigger issue. And I would argue that there is plenty of sexism there."
And there are other issues too. It didn't take long from the beginning of the Olympics before I heard people asking why it is necessary for women to be wearing such tiny bikinis in beach volleyball when the men wear shorts and a T-shirt. This conversation is interesting not only at face value but because it spilled over into a discussion about the Egyptian competitors who chose to wear a hijab.
At the end of the day, these women were simply playing a sport, but the politics of the hijab was evident in headlines and media discussion.
In fact all of these conversations are political and it is appropriate that we having national and global debates within the democracy of the Olympics.
