The Great Games

Before my current writing life, there was The Hilltop, Howard University’s and the Nation’s Oldest Black Collegiate Newspaper, where many of the questions and themes I still explore first found their voice. What follows are my early published works, preserved in their original form.

From The Hilltop Archives

Originally published in The Hilltop, Howard University — September 3rd, 2004

__________________________________________________________________________________

The Great Games

Exhale, everyone can breathe a sigh of relief. It was a great 17 days of the XXVIII Olympiad and what most feared never came to pass. After watching the opening ceremonies with the mesmerizing performances and firework display, Athens quickly put to sleep any notions of their architectural and preparation incompetence. The cost was only $8 billion (give or take a few million) and thousands of man-hours, but Greece pulled off a feat that left the faithless speechless. No worries, the International Olympic Committee had a contractually obligated and supplied $905 million to Athenian organization committee leaving a $7 billion debt. It doesn't matter if there were 10,000 athletes from 202 countries with their friends and family, it's going to take more than 17 days for Athens to get out of this hole.

 

But hey, there were no immediate threats, incidents or events that the world expected so let's rejoice. 

 

Whoa, don't celebrate just yet. Terrorist may not have attacked the Olympic Games, but there were those who, on a smaller scale, caused other types of Olympic havoc. 

 

Take Irishmen Cornelius Horan. During the men's marathon, he came from the crowd, grabbed Brazil's Vanderlei de Lima and held his from a gold, literally.

 

The kilt-wearing Horan shocked everyone, but what's worst, his previous stunt could have left him as road kill at the British Grand Prix Formula One in July 2003. 

 

The next victim was 12-time Olympic medalist and Russian Gymnast Alexei Nemov. The man did his thing on the high bar. The judges, however, weren't impressed. I don't really follow gymnastics, but their score of 9.725 was a bit low and they heard if from the crowd. The Canadian judge couldn't take it, gave into the "peer pressure" and changed his score. Amazing what the masses can do when they're unified against an injustice. 

 

The story of the games was American Paul Hamm. The man almost split his wig on the judge's table and still got the gold. 

 

I am not understanding...

How do you fall into 12th place with two events to go and still get first? It's a mind boggler because the only logical explanation is that he was a victim of circumstance. You know, he's an American, 9/11...I mean if Bush can play the victim card to coerce congress into giving him, I mean the U.S. soldiers and Iraq, billions of dollars, why can't Hamm do it for the gold? This is an election year and people love those sob stories of people who overcome incredible odds and great adversity to come out victorious in the end. It's just so touching...excuse me (sobbing).

 

Personally, this whole victim bit is a tad played. Once Dubya demanded athletes refrain from celebration with the U.S. flag because of concerns about anti-American backlash and hatred toward the stars and stripes, I was through.

 

By no means am I discounting the attacks in Madrid, Iraq and other places throughout the world, but the U.S. financial institutions were the primary target, not the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur or the recently completed and newly opened Taipei 101 Mall in Taiwan. This is the America's war and the American fears; the push to get extra security and anti-terrorism personnel in Athens for the Olympics was a U.S. initiative. 

 

So, you'd think the U.S. would have been the first to assist Athens with anti-terrorism preparation for the Olympics. 

 

They did. With an anti-terrorism expense of $1.5 billion, the U.S. gave a generous contribution of 400. 

 

Oh, let me clarify, not $400 million, not even $400,000, but 400 people American "special-forces" soldiers, to aid in Olympic protection. Wow, the U.S. went all out to ensure the safety of all the athletes at the games. But not to worry, whatever the "special-forces" solider missed, Durex - one of the many proud sponsors of the 2004 Olympics Games - had everyone fully covered. Who knows, this might be a great partnership Durex and the Olympics, because when you take one for the team, you want to always be protected.

 

Better still, if MasterCard was to sponsor the Olympic Games this year's commercial would have gone something like this:

 

U.S. built command-and-control center equipped with streaming video, audio and eavesdropping telephones...$312 million 

 

Blimp outfitted with high-resolution cameras and chemical detection systems...$2.4 million

 

Getting the best security U.S. money didn't buy...PRICELESS.

There are some things money can't buy. For everything else there's MasterCard. Official card of the Olympics and the U.S. government.