Olympic Spirit Lags As Opening Ceremony Nears
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By DERON SNYDER
Let the games begin and let the foolishness end.
Here’s hoping the Opening Ceremony on Friday night starts a better spell for the London Olympics. Because getting into the spirit has been challenging thus far.
Perhaps the difficulty is a natural progression, a byproduct of hyperactive lives in cyberspace, which leaves us “always on.” Slowing down to recognize the Olympics’ unique and special qualities is much harder when everything else all year moves in a round-the-clock blur.
When news from this Olympiad has caught our attention, it’s been for the wrong reasons. We’re at the point where only the torch can spark our dampened attitudes.
One of biggest downers is the International Olympic Committee’s steadfast refusal to commemorate the 1972 Munich Games, where 11 Israeli athletes and a West German policeman were killed by Palestinian terrorists. Widows of the slain athletes met Wednesday with IOC president Jacques Rogge to formally request a minute of silence during the Opening Ceremony.
But just like other attempts by other parties during other Olympics, the widows’ request was rejected. “We feel that the Opening Ceremony is an atmosphere that is not fit to remember such a tragic incident,” Rogge said at a news conference last week.
