Ellie keeps Games flame alive for me

So, the Olympics. Here we go!

Normally, right about now, I’d be so excited and focused on the upcoming two weeks of sports and the lifetime dreams of athletes. The Olympics — summer and winter — have always been such a highlight for me. But this year? Not so much. This year, it is all about Olympic cognitive dissonance for me. COVID dissonance.

I will probably look in on the Games, but I’ll be feeling sort of uninvited, like I’m crashing a dinner party the hosts didn’t want to have in the first place.

That is hardly the spirit of the Olympics. Alas, here we are in these strange times.

As of Friday, there were 12 confirmed cases of COVID inside the Olympic Village and another 94 among staff, volunteers, media and other delegates. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) says 15 per cent of athletes are not vaccinated.

Only 23 per cent of Japan’s population is fully vaccinated. Tokyo is presently clocking 1,000 new COVID cases per day.

There are 11,000 athletes now in the city, and almost 80,000 accredited Olympic visitors. And the highly contagious Delta variant is dominant in Tokyo.

So what could possibly go wrong here?

No wonder many Tokyo residents are not on board with these Games. One poll recently showed that more than 80 per cent of Japanese residents are opposed.

Huge stadiums will be hollow because fans are banned under the state of emergency. Major sponsors like Japanese car maker Toyota declined to attend Friday’s opening ceremonies and will not be airing their commercials in the host nation.

Japanese health-care workers and experts fear the Games will fuel a further surge of infections and this will put health-care workers and hospitals at risk.

The Tokyo 2020 Olympics — already once delayed — have become a metaphor for everything that is wrong with the Olympics.

The COVID crisis arrives at a time when the whole Olympic movement was already in trouble.

Increasingly, the Olympics bring with them a bad odour of corruption, greed and cheating. There is votebuying, absence of accountability and transparency, and doping among some athletes. The Games are bloated with expensive stadiums that leave cities and countries with mountains of debt.

All you have to do is look at the rusted-out carcasses of Olympic stadiums and villages in places like Greece and Brazil. The IOC promise of showcasing host nations to the world for those two weeks doesn’t seem worth the billions these countries and cities spend to host the Games.

The Olympic movement has lost its way, but individual athletes still keep the Olympic ideal alive, in my mind at least.

In Nova Scotia, we have the powerful gymnast Ellie Black who is in Tokyo competing in her third Olympic Games. Over the years, we have watched her rise as a star on the world stage of gymnastics, which has to be one of the most gruelling sports.

What we don’t see are the early-morning hours in the gym, the sacrifices made and the pain of injury and surgery she has endured.

Athletes like Ellie push their bodies and minds into places few of us can contemplate. They invest so much in their sport. When they win, it’s exhilarating. But they don’t always win or perform their best.

And that is where the real guts come into play — when they have to dig deep and pull up for the next competition.

This, in my mind, is the true spirit of the Olympics.

This doesn’t erase all problems that plague the Games, but Ellie is one little shining nugget of the Olympic-gold dream that I still hold dear.

There are thousands of other Ellies in Tokyo with no parents or friends in the stands this time. It will be for them that I’ll watch the Games this year, cheer them on and hope they show their best selves.

And maybe even come home with a medal. Go, Ellie!