Liberal Arts Blog — Paris Olympics — Breakdancing, Swimming In The Seine, What Else To Know? Who Cares? Who Should? Why?
Liberal Arts Blog — Saturday is Sports, Dance, Fitness, and All Things Physical Day
Today’s Topic: Paris Olympics — Breakdancing, Swimming in the Seine, what else to know? who cares? who should? why?
Do you care about the Olympics? Will you watch any of it? Are you planning to go to Paris? Which of the 329 events enthralls you the most? What sport would you add to the program if you could? Which would you delete?
What to you was the greatest moment in the history of the Olympics? Was it the triumph of Jesse Owens at the Berlin Olympics of 1936? Do you remember the story of his friendship with silver medalist Luz Long?
Have you been to the Olympics? Memories? Have you thought of the Olympics as a metaphor? If sports is a metaphor for life, is the lesson of the Olympics that the impossible isn’t?
Today, a few more notes. Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
“THE ENTIRE CITY HAS BEEN TURNED INTO A VAST OLYMPIC STADIUM. THE SEINE REPRESENTS THE TRACK, AND THE QUAYS THE STANDS” (Tony Estanguet, 3X Olympic gold medalist and head of the 2024 Paris Olympics Organizing Committee)
1. Breakdancing is making its debut and while three sports are making their second appearance: skateboarding, surfing, and sport climbing.
2. Sports with most events: “athletics” (eg. track and field) 48 , aquatics, 43, cycling 22, wrestling 18.
3. 10,500 athletes. 185 countries, 329 gold medals in 32 sports. Start Friday, July 26. Ends Sunday August 11.
NB: The United States has 588 athletes participating. France has 547. Australia 429. China 368, Japan 367. Great Britain 310. Netherlands 232. New Zealand has 184. 14 Russians and 11 Belorussians have been allowed to compete with neutral status.
WITH THE SUN SETTING, WILL THE OPENING CEREMONY BE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL EVENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE PLANET EARTH?
1.”With the natural light of the setting sun. the event will be even more sublime, with a truly poetic dimension, inviting both athletes and the public to appreciate the natural beauty of the City of Light.” (Estanguet)
2. “Nearly 100 boats will parade down a 6-kilometer (about 3.7 miles) stretch of the Seine, winding east to west through Paris and passing by some of hte city’s iconic bridges, landmarks (like Notre Dame and the Louvre) and Olympic venues (including the Grand Palais.”
3. “The route will end near the Eiffel Tower at the Trocadero, where the ceremony’s finale and official Olympic protocols, including the opening declaration by French President Emmanuel Macron will take place.”
KYLIAN MBAPPE, YULIMAR ROJAS, REBECA ANDRADE, KATIE LEDECKY — mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the greatest of them all? Below — a little historical perspective, Jesse Owens at the 1936 Berlin Olympics (Luz Long, German, silver, Naomo Najima, Japan, bronze)
1. Michael Phelps, the swimmer, has the most Olympic medals at 28.
2. Carl Lewis is one of only three athletes to win a single event 4 times.
3. Nadia Comaneci is the first gymnast to win a perfect 10 (at the Montreal Olympics in 1976). She was 14.
She won three gold medals that year and then two more later.
NB: Jesse Owens won four Gold Medals at the Berlin Olympics in 1936. Luz Long defying Hitler, walked arm in arm with Owens through the Berlin stadium, but he would die fighting in the German army in Sicily, Owens remembers Long’s moment of defiance: “It took a lot of courage for him to befriend me in front of Hitler…I would melt down all the medals and cups i have and they wouldn’t be a plating on the twenty-four karat friendship that I felt for Luz Long at that moment.”
Owens and Long corresponded for years. Before his death, Long requested that in the event of his death, Owens travel to Germany after the war and tell Long’s son Karl about their friendship. Owens did so and would be the best man at Karl’s wedding. The families have stayed in touch ever since. Below, Luz Long’s granddaughter Julia, Luz’s son Karl (Kai) and Jesse Owens granddaughter Marlene (Owens) Dortch in Berlin in 2009 at the IAAF World Championships in Athletics. Truth is stranger than fiction.
The impossible isn’t.
https://time.com/6995210/olympics-opening-ceremony-paris-when-how-to-watch-performances-security/
Paris Summer Olympics 2024: Everything you need to know
Paris Olympics 2024: Top 100 athletes to watch at the Summer Olympics
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
For the last four years of posts organized by theme:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
ATTACHMENTS BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest thing you learned this week related to sports, dance, fitness. Or the coolest thing you learned about Sports, Dance, of Fitness in your life — whether on the field, on the dance floor or in the gym, whether from a coach, a parent, a friend, or just your own experimentation.
This is your chance to make some one else’s day. Or even change their life. It’s perhaps a chance to put into words something you have never articulated before. And to cement in your own memory something cool you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than otherwise about something dear to your heart.
