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Column: There are no bad guys in the Olympics
(by Christine Bryant, Eastside Editor - February 17, 2010)
Anyone who loves sports knows there are always good guys and bad guys. They're what make sports competitive, nasty and fun.
While what constitutes a "good guy" and a "bad guy" is in the eye of the beholder and dependin on whom you ask, there is one event where there are no bad guys - the Olympics.
Sure, two countries might not see eye to eye in the political or cultural realms, and citizens certainly take pride in seeing their own athletes step foot on the winners' podium.
Watching the opening ceremonies, however, is enough to show we're really not all that different. The athletes may have different shades of skin color, may speak in various languages and may carry distinct flags. But all carry grins from ear to ear, thrilled with the fact they are somewhere they've only dreamed of.
The sports and the athletes that make them look easy are incredible, but the stories behind those athletes are even more amazing.
Take the story of Alexandre Bilodeau, the skier who won gold in the men's moguls for Canada - the country's first gold medalist in an Olympics held on home soil. He's a hero to Canadians, but perhaps even more so to his brother, who has cerebral palsy and cheered him on from a wheelchair at the bottom of the course.
Bilodeau has credited his brother for giving him inspiration to wake up each morning and never take for granted what his brother doesn't have the chance to do.
Then there's J.R. Celski, the U.S. bronze medalist in the 1,500-meter short track skating competition. Just 154 days prior to taking the ice, he thought his Olympic journey was over. While competing in the semifinals of a 500-meter race in Michigan, he crashed into a wall. The blade on his skate gashed his leg, barely missing his femoral artery.
Watching the video replay, all you see is Celski holding his leg in agony as a pool of blood forms next to his body. The end results were 60 stitches and the fear that his skating career was over. But it wasn't, and Celski proved that to us as he stood on the podium to collect his bronze medal.
My favorite story so far is that of pairs figure skaters Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo of China. Maybe it's the romantic in me, but watching the married couple skate with raw emotion on their faces and the passion in their movements left a smile on my face.
At the last two Olympics, Xue and Hongbo were awarded bronze medals and retired in 2007 after winning a World Championship. The Olympic gold medal, however, had eluded them. Not wanting to give up on their dream, they came out of retirement, and earlier this week found themselves on the podium once again - this time as gold medalists.
And those were just a few of the stories in the first few days of the Olympics.
As someone who roots for American athletes and is a huge sports fan, I find myself doing something uncharacteristic - not rooting against the other teams. In fact, as Canada was on the brink of winning its first gold medal on Canadian soil, I found myself cheering for our neighbor to the north. And when an athlete from a country I'm not even sure I can place on a map begins to compete, I hope for the best.
Maybe it's because it's hard to root against someone attempting to fulfill what has to be a dream. Or maybe it's because it's easy to appreciate the amount of work it must have taken to get to this point in his or her life.
Either way, it's refreshing to be able to watch a sporting event on TV and genuinely feel happy for whoever wins, whether that person is on your team or not.
Christine Bryant-Whaley is editor of the Eastside Messenger.
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