What We Learned: Monuments are Cool.

Record-breakers, too

Aug 12, 2024

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Trying to draw overarching, transferable lessons from an event that occurs once every four years — and never hits the same place twice in a row, instead getting packed up and shuttled off from nation to nation depending upon the high $$$ bid — is, frankly, ridiculous.

Let’s jump right in.

The more history, the better.

No, there won’t be a test. But one of the things the Paris Olympics organizers did insanely well was to find ways of incorporating the city’s (and region’s) beautiful, historic monuments and landmarks during the competitions. There was beach volleyball in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, tennis at Roland Garros, fencing and taekwondo at the Grand Palais. The equestrian and modern pentathlon events went off at Versailles. They swam in the Seine. (That part wasn't actually great.) Every broadcast reminded you of the eloquent history of the city.

The odds aren’t wonderful that Los Angeles 2028 can mirror that. Paris, after all, has been around since roughly 8000 BC and been the political and cultural center of France since the 12th century, while L.A. was founded by the Spaniards in 1781. But Los Angeles absolutely has landmarks, and thanks to Hollywood, it also has a host of sites about which global viewers will say, “I’ve seen that before! David Hasselhoff was in that one!”, or something like that.

The organizers and TV producers will need 100% of that charm to make the broadcasts work in what will be a very spread-out Angeleno Games. Advantage, scenery.

GOATS are cool.

Supremacy in sports can feel fleeting, and with Olympic events especially, it’s always a little dicey to get too far down the path of proclamation. With that said, it is likely that we just watched a couple of genuine greats push their records out there beyond what other mortals may achieve.

Simone Biles is considered the best of all time by other gymnasts, which really ought to tell you something. She now has 11 Olympic medals, seven gold. Swimmer Katie Ledecky, one of the most dominant athletes in any discipline in the world, is up to 14 Olympic medals, including nine gold, to go with 21 world championship gold medals. Both had luminous runs in Paris, leaving us to wonder who might shine in L.A.

Snoop is all in.

I really don’t have anything to add here. I only mention it because Snoop Dogg has become lock-tight with NBC’s moguls over the last couple of Olympics, and since he lives in L.A., you should probably get used to the idea that he’ll be all over the 2028 Games broadcast as well.

Sunday’s closing ceremony included the ritual passing of the Olympic flag from one host country to the next. In this case, Tom Cruise did his Mission: Impossible thing along with his Top Gun thing and “delivered” the flag across the world to a succession of folks who wound up at a particularly pretty strip of sand in Long Beach. At one point, Snoop and Dr. Dre performed, which sounds like a chill surfside hip-hop get-together until you realize that they’re actually a couple of the savviest businessmen in the greater Los Angeles metroplex, teaming up for a massive self-promo en route to another payday. Which is fairly mod-Olympian, when you think about it.

The U.S. relay system could use a makeover.

The American men crapped out of the 4x100 track relay, a glamour event in any Olympics, because they botched the first baton handoff. The U.S. men have been off the medal stand in this event since 2004, prompting Olympic legend Carl Lewis to tweet, “It is time to blow up the system. This continues to be completely unacceptable. It is clear that EVERYONE at (USA Track & Field) is more concerned with relationships than winning.”

To put it in a thimble, the Americans generally pick relay teams at the last minute, and thus they have limited or no practice time to work on handoffs. The selection process also gets political, and the U.S. historically has used different rosters throughout the various rounds so that if they do win a medal, more people get to take one home. Other countries pick their relay teams and then work on their drills. We could maybe try this, see where it goes.

Breakdancing: Nah.

If you watched the breaking competition, or if somehow you stumbled upon it during an NBC highlights package, you may have found yourself thinking, “This is sort of interesting, and I’m not really against it, but it doesn’t feel like an Olympic sport exactly, does it?”

I may be crediting you with thinking more about it than you did. But if you did, you’re not alone. Breaking was not invited to the L. A. Games, while baseball, softball, lacrosse and cricket will all make Olympic returns in 2028. Breaking’s appearance in Paris thus feels destined to be a one-off. Then again, we might’ve thought the same about artistic swimming, and people seem to love that, so, you know.

Athletes recover…quicker?

Noah Lyles (that’s him above) won the men’s 100 meters in a crazy finish, and he looked incredible and paraded and performed for a raucous crowd. A couple of days later, he finished third in the 200 meters (his specialty) after bounding onto the track in a massive pre-race hypefest, then nearly collapsed. He lay prone post-race, struggled to walk or catch his breath, was taken off in a wheelchair, and later announced that he had Covid and was withdrawing from the men’s 4x100 relay.

A couple of days after that, Lyles was joyously dancing into the night in the Paris clubs. He said he was now Covid-free and posted a photo of a negative test.

I can’t say I’m sure what happened. But if the city of Los Angeles can do that for athletes four years from now, we most certainly will have something to brag about.