Real or Trickery at the Olympics

Sometimes when you become envious (or even jealous) of someone or something, it's human nature to begin to try and 'take apart' the whole thing and prove that the object of your derision isn't worthy of praise in the first place. For example, the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in Beijing this year have been heralded as most likely the best ever. London, which will be hosting the Olympics four years from now must already be considering what to do or how to top or at least meet the standards set in Beijing last Friday. But there are those who would rather spend the time and take apart the show bit by bit and expose it as a fake rather than acknowledging the beauty of it.

As the days have passed in these Olympic games, there have been more and more accusations flying regarding the state of the games. For example, the little 9-year-old girl who sang the song of welcome in the cermonies, didn't actually sing but rather lip-syched the song since the original singer was not deemed 'beautiful' enough for viewing on the world stage. So what did they do? They put a child model on display and had her fake her way through. Is this what we're interested in? Is this what the games should be remembered for? That the shots shown on NBC of the 'firework footsteps' approaching the stadium were 'digitally enhanced' for the audience thus the whole thing was a fake? I don't understand why there's such efforts underway out there to prove that these games haven't been worthy of praise.

The showmanship portion of the games may have been wrought with some forms of trickery or flim-flam but for the most part, the performances by the athletes themselves have been nothing short of extraordinary. The feats of Michael Phelps need not be mentioned simply because there are far better people out there who have expressed the heart and desire which he exemplified in his completion of eight Gold Medals to become the winningest athlete ever in a single games and for all time. His inspirational swims have been among the most exciting accomplishments throughout the games but they aren't the only ones. This past weekend I had a chance to watch the women's marathon. For those who don't know, it's a 26-mile run through Beijing that ended in the Bird's Nest stadium. For a little over two hours I watched as 38-year-old Romanian mother, Constantina Tomescu-Dita, finished nearly 22 seconds before her nearest rival. Now while that seems like a minor margin, seeing it on television was something else.

Now I have run short distances before and I will never claim to be a long distance runner like these women were but I could tell that Tomescu-Dita was running herself to the limit to try and at least finish the race if not win it. For more than half the distance Tomescu-Dita didn't even glance to the sides or back to see where the competition was. At one point, when she finally did, I'm sure she was wondering if she had made a wrong turn someplace since there was no one around her except for the television car. It was amazing to see and even more so to realize that she is 38-years-old. I couldn't have contemplated doing something like that at the age of 28 let alone now but she did it and did it in world class style.

Even after she finished the race, she kept up the same pace and ran victory lap after victory lap around the stadium in celebration. Rather than acknowledging the feat however, I'm sure there were some out there who wondered if she had taken some sort of performance enhancing drugs to help her along. It's unfortunate that we now live in a time where honest accomplishments have to be taken with such pessimism. I certainly hope that after whatever testing is required, she is proven to be the real champion. Sure there are things that have been enhanced or faked throughout these games but the accomplishments of the athletes in these sorts of competitions can rarely be faked. Are we so jaded now that we can't consider that humans can accomplish things without the need for 'help'? I certainly hope we aren't fully into that mindset. We shouldn't cloud the games with such thoughts.