A Call to Rekindle the Olympic Ideal of Togetherness

From the natural majestic mountain peaks to the high-tech, man-made speedskating rinks capable of regulating temperature to one-tenth of a degree, there is much to be admired in these Olympic Games. Camera angles offer the world vicarious wins and defeats that surpass the thrills of any video arcade. Yet, somehow, this author expects more from the living and breathing Olympic Games.

The contests and security rule the headlines. The ancient games also were based on contests and born in uncertain times. Pugnacity, cruelty and folly in the ancient Greek era were so rampant that humans of wisdom looked for a way to reach out to one another.

The Games were originally associated with religious festivals, held every fourth year and signaled a period of non-warring and mutual acquaintance.

A thousand years followed of heralds’ quadrennial sounding the “Call to the Games” and announcing this “Truce of God” throughout the Greek peninsula. It afforded the warring parties wholesome moments during which they could objectively analyze and negotiate old grievances and new issues.

When will the General Assembly of the United Nations consider an Olympic truce for the world?

Today the Games embrace not one peninsula, but the whole globe. The first Games of the new millennium need to deliver an extraordinary call for global togetherness.

Perhaps, Eternal Wisdom itself brought them to Salt Lake City, whose pioneering spirit is engraved in history. One hundred and fifty years ago, the Mormon settlers in Utah awoke the powers of water from clear mountain streams to return to fertility the baked soil they plowed. Now, the Olympics need to awaken the powers of optimism from reasonable humans and help turn the soils of despair into those of active hope.

The world believes the Olympics enhance the realization of human kinship. Indeed, the sentimentality of the opening ceremony creates in the multinational audiences all-embracing feelings.

Then, sadly, amid the “going for the gold” that has since become the Olympics’ main purpose, those feelings evaporate.

This time, the Utah Symphony, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the gentle art of the welcoming spectacle promised to Light the Fire Within--it is hoped, the fire of all-global friendship. For the more than $1 billion that these Games will cost, the Truce of God ought to be reflected as well.

The awesome financial expenditure also calls urgently for a commitment to making it worthwhile. The leafy twig that breathes oxygen, the moonlit eye of a coyote, the schoolhouse that introduces knowledge, and the sporting event that embraces the world, all play irreplaceable parts in the great Games of Survival and must not be ignored.

For a moment, turn your eyes to the suffering of nature and to the river of tears shed by the world’s mothers who lost their progeny to violence, and you may see more clearly that the message of the Olympic Games must be about brotherhood and sisterhood as well as competition.

Scores of years have passed since the first Summer Olympics in Athens in 1896, and the first Winter Games in Chamonix, France, in 1924. Their studious originator, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, had concluded that the political and armed struggles in 19th-century Europe were similar to those of the ancient Greek city-states, and embarked on a campaign to restore the Olympic Games as a way to build respect and communication among friends and foes in the modern times.

Nowadays, De Coubertin’s name is mentioned less and less. He believed, for example, that Olympians should come from the amateur ranks and upon their return home forever bear witness to the possibility of international understanding and mutually respectful communication.

But today’s reality is different. Many countries that take part in the Olympic Games do not offer affordable sporting opportunities to the masses. Many aspirants to Olympic greatness live and train far away from their countries and, when victorious, continue to battle for medals and monetary rewards as a career.

Yet, I believe that De Coubertin’s ideals cannot be lost. They live in Olympic villages where one begins to see the world as something larger than one’s self. They thrive within the crowds of receptive minds where a gesture, a smile, or a helping hand reinforce the fact that all people are equal.

The time has arrived that in order to maintain their morality, the Olympic Games must become an opportunity for wondrous healing and mutual appreciation of all human endeavors--Games in which we all can participate.

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Olga Connolly, a five-time Olympian and 1956 gold-medal winner in the discus, recently retired as education coordinator of the California Conservation Corps. She lives in Newport Beach.