My family, as perhaps yours, was always glued to the TV the entire Olympics. It brought our family together. The theme music sent us sprinting to the living room. Takashi Ono, Muhammad Ali, Larisa Latynina, Peggy Fleming, Dorothy Hamill, Katarina Witt, Mark Spitz, Carl Lewis, and – perhaps most charmingly of all – Nadia Comaneci, blew the world’s collective mind. 

In 2000, the Olympic Committee’s slogan was The Joy Unites Us. Coke’s current ad campaign is: “It’s magic when the world comes together.” I do hope that these are both true, and happening. I admit I entered this 33^rd Olympiad in a jaded state. The world has gone cuckoo. I miss the (innocent!) Russian gymnasts, and the Refugee Olympic Team breaks my heart conceptually … but, man, it has all turned out exciting. 

Summer has 329 events, 32 sports (winter has 15). Daytime and weekends are the best time to watch. At night, NBC seems to think Americans only want to hear about Americans. Well sure, NBC’s viewers are mainly American, but in the past, we got far more background on athletes of all the Lands. Now it’s all “USA! USA! USA!” 

I love Simone Biles and other remarkable American contenders as much as anyone, but surely there are “foreign” athletes that have overcome adversity whose stories are worth telling? And we’d like to learn more, maybe, about the host nation’s athletes?

As a sports fan I’m a perpetual underdogger, beyond thrilled, for example, when the Netherlands, Kenya, Ukraine (Mahuchinkh in her sleeping bag between high jumps!), and the tiny Caribbean nation of St. Lucia strike gold in track and field, Algeria in uneven bars, or Armenia medals on vault. Refugee team member Simone Ngamba of Camaroon with at least a bronze in boxing: I wept. 

The point of The Joy Unites Us, the best slogan ever, was the jubilance on the beaming faces of medaling athletes of any nation whatsoever, captivating and connecting an entire globe. It wasn’t about the largest countries with the most athletes and biggest pocketbooks to train them. 

Seeing Greece’s and Ireland’s absolute elation at capturing bronze (rings; swimming), and (especially underdog) winning athletes and coaches from around the globe crying freely, Djokovic full-out sobbing … that’s what it’s about for me. I panic whenever someone falls off a device, wipes out, trips, disqualifies, loses a medal last-minute due to the judges’ gaffe (what?!), or blows a dive, after years of training. That’s sorrow, an empathetic sorrow. But when NBC shows us a team celebrating the low score of another country’s athlete because it means they just went up a notch themselves, I want to turn the TV off.

Yet mostly, as ever, I’m bawling. United in joy with humans planet-wide! Many things remain the same. The butterfly stroke still boggles. The insane balance beam, rings, vault, pommel horse, bike racing, and hurdles still terrify. 

Newer events astound. Surfing, skateboarding: yipes. I dug the Mixed Relays in track and swimming. In track, it’s men vs. men and women vs. women for each leg; in swimming it’s anyone’s choice for each leg. Please know I don’t consider women superior to men, but how amazing to see women best men in any race at all. I’ve seen no broadcast of Breaking or Canoe Slalom. I guess that’s why God invented YouTube.

Mercifully, there is way less Beach Volleyball this year, which felt like an endless broadcast of women in microkinis, when there are dozens of other competitions going on.

So watch the athletes put the final pedals to the medals and pour on the gas, with much drama remaining. You just might feel something in that place where your heart used to be. Closing Ceremonies on Sunday. Next up: the Paralympics. Riveting!

Good Olympics, good Paralympics, and good day.

Ann Aikens’ book of advice, A Young Woman’s Guide to Life: A Cautionary Tale, is at Amazon & Vermont shops. She has written her Upper Valley Girl column since 1996. Find shops & events at annaikens.com; more of her writing at uppervalleygirl.com.