Today, August 11, 2024, marks the end of the Summer Olympic Games — the quadrennial meeting between some of the globe’s most formidable athletes. Like most of the world, I don’t watch these competitions in person, from the sites of the host city. Rather, I keep abreast by watching live on the television or via pings from my ESPN app. Since the start of the Games, I’ve been keeping the Olympics on the TV, running in the background at a low volume. Now and then, my attention from the computer has been peeled away by the impassioned voice of a sports announcer reacting to a close finish or excellent play or execution. In the excitement, I’m no longer bitter about forgetting to unsubscribe from Peacock or that NBC (on local stations, at least) is temporarily not running my favorite television program — The Today Show. The matchups and dramatic stories that elevate the Olympic Games to a level of near mythology make me feel like I’m legitimately and fully part of a great world, like an important thread of a nation equally lionized and reviled for its reputation for consistently raking in gold medals and having a monopoly on specific events.
La Ville-Lumière was selected to host the Summer Olympics in 2017, at the 131st International Olympic Committee (IOC) Session in Lima, Peru. So much has changed in the world since then, yet some things have stayed the same. Paris remains one of the globe’s most…
