Olympics Underway with Lomong Leading the Way for U.S.

Congratulations to Tully grad Lopez Lomong who was selected to carry the flag for the United States at the opening ceremonies in Beijing!  Apparently there were a lot of politically charged questions posed to Lopez surrounding China's support of the Sudanese government that he aptly dodged.  While it must have been tough to maintain the press-friendly talk for the whole duration of the question barrage, a lot of track athletes have made it pretty clear that sport and politics don't mix.  I have to agree here.

When running is your career and you've waited four years or more for your chance to compete on a stage like the Olympics, human rights abuses--no matter how grotesque--probably aren't the first thing on your mind.  Your job is to execute and place as high as you can, and in a way, avoiding the political situation (which is realistically out of your control when you think relatively about what a governing like the U.S. or the U.N. could accomplish if they were really willing to stir the pot) is exactly the selfish (but necessary) move that performing at the top often requires.

It doesn't mean that you have to agree with a host's policies.  It also doesn't mean that your government should proclaim "we're not playing" to the rest of the world when the host happens to be someone like the U.S.S.R.  I'd much rather see some fireworks a la Jesse Owens v. Adolf Hitler.  Winning medals is what Olympic athletes do best.

With the Olympics now officially underway, I'm going to be posting a good amount of commentary in the weeks to come.  Stay tuned.