Any Olympics leaves an aftertaste.
Some are remembered for the success of their athletes, some for their brilliant organization, or, on the contrary, for its wretchedness, as it was, for example, at the 1996 Games in Atlanta.
In the past few years, Russia has not been very lucky in the Olympic plan: there have always been reasons that greatly overshadowed the holiday.
The non-admission of athletes to Rio de Janeiro, the humiliating status in Pyeongchang ... Actually, the Russian team went to Tokyo without an anthem and a flag and, I think, the expectations of not only individual people, but the entire country boiled down to the fact that we all need these Games just get through.
And it turned out to be a holiday!
Surprisingly, even the fact that the Games were held in virtually empty stands played in favor of a very bright sports aftertaste.
At some point, this new pandemic reality began to be perceived as a laconic setting around a gem that is unique in terms of purity and size.
And thanks to this, we got in Tokyo a unique opportunity to see not the cumbersome and noisy Olympic festival, raging around the clock in the squares and streets, but the quintessence of sport in its original form.
Where people are incinerated by passions and at every step there are scenarios that cannot be thought up on purpose.
What is just one gymnastic story, the story of Simone Biles - a great drama that unfolded in front of the whole world?
Has it become less shrill from the fact that there were no spectators in the hall?
Games are always a winner and a loser.
It doesn't have to be about medals at all.
You can be remembered for years as a true winner, overcoming only yourself, as Madina Taymazova did, who won bronze in judo with a broken eye after being defeated by a chokehold, or Arthur Dalaloyan, who put his health on the line for the success of the national team in the final of the gymnastic all-around.
Champions are another story.
Fighting at the Olympics for a gold medal with an opponent who is in no way weaker than you is a very cruel thing, sometimes forcing athletes to discard absolutely all feelings, except for hypertrophied selfishness and ambition.
Three-time Olympic champion Alexander Karelin put it most accurately on this score, saying many years ago in an interview that big sport is capable of awakening not the best qualities in people. And he explained: “When a person goes out to fight for a medal, he, as a rule, does not care that he is not the only one who wants to be the first. He is eager to win, completely disregarding the interests of his rivals. "
Perhaps, only at the Olympic Games, the victory of an individual athlete can inspire a sense of pride and belonging in the entire country. Or plunge the latter into the abyss of indignation. The most striking illustration in this regard was the penultimate day of the Tokyo Games with the victory of the Israeli Lina Ashram in the individual all-around rhythmic gymnastics and the gold Maria Lasitskene in the athletics jump sector. What color to color this day in the history of sports? Triumphant red or mourning black? Ask people this question, and you will hear in response completely opposite opinions, and containing a lot of shades.
In fact, this particular Saturday day reminded all of us that absolutely nothing has changed in the sport of the highest achievements since the ancient Olympics: there are athletes who rush to Olympus without seeing anyone or anything around, and there is a crowd filled with rage eyes and thirsty for blood. Beastly before our eyes, if something suddenly starts to go not according to the scenario that was supposed.
This is also the Olympic Games. It's just the other side of them, the dark one. Sometimes it seems that the Games are becoming a magnet of incredible power for politicians of all stripes, for fanatics of all kinds, and even frankly crazy. Hence the terrorist attacks in Munich and Atlanta, typhoons of human malice, pouring out into the social networks of athletes, and even into real life. How, for example, did the Israeli gymnast deserve so much hatred in her address? The one who gave everything on the carpet that she was able to give? It is hardly possible at all to determine the price of an Olympic victory by looking at it from the outside, but not a single Olympic gold goes to freebies. No matter how random the victory may seem.
It is clear that in the first minutes and hours after any defeat, the loser is ready to blame the whole world for his grief, to anathematize both the opponent and the judges. All this does not come from the mind, from the emotions. But isn't it absurd when people try to do this, turning their eyes to athletes at best once every two years, or even less often? Those who do not understand sports, do not love it, do not know the rules, do not respect either winners or losers. Subconsciously wanting only one thing: to draw attention to themselves at any cost.
In the same series - the situation with the Ukrainian high jumper Yaroslava Maguchikh, who “dared” to take a picture with the great champion from the wrong country. Isn't it absurd: against the backdrop of the Olympics suffered by the world, against the backdrop of a grandiose event that really united the world, even if only for a few days of a difficult year for all mankind, against the backdrop of a grandiose Olympic success for the debutante, finally, they begin to brandish a punishing sword in front of her.
History is also amazing because sport at all times has been a means to unite the nation, to awaken in people a sense of pride for the country, and this becomes especially obvious when the country is going through a difficult period.
An athlete fighting for a medal at the Games is capable of doing much more in this regard than a dozen or two politicians and diplomats.
And after all, it never even occurs to anyone that it is absolutely impossible to grow a champion from a person who is forced to constantly be afraid of his own actions.
Yes, he can be intimidated, pressed, punished, finally.
But this is perhaps the shortest step towards killing your own nation.
Now that perhaps the toughest Games in Olympic history have been completed, it’s time to think about that too.
No wonder, after all, the International Olympic Committee for the first time in history changed the motto of its movement?