The Winter Olympics are broken.
My family has been looking forward to them. We love the pageantry, the drama, and the vignettes about the athletes’ backgrounds. I just wish they’d implement one idea I believe would enhance the experience for everyone.
Before each event, they should hold an exhibition match or heat with regular people demonstrating the sport we’re about to see. And when I say “regular people,” I don’t mean an amateur who missed the cut, or even a teenager familiar with the sport who can hold their own.
I mean a regular Joe who has literally never done the thing before. Ever.
Look, we all think a Triple sow cow Salchow (Really? It’s not “sow cow?”) is impressive, but it would take on a whole new level of wow when compared to a guy attempting it who can barely stay upright in skates for three seconds.
Be honest: How many of us have sat smugly on our sofa with our half-empty bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, scoffing at the bobsledders who don’t appear to be doing anything other than going for a ride?
It’s a fast ride, but still.
Something tells me we’d all be singing a different tune if we swapped the four athletes out with four random dudes from the neighborhood bar.
Am I the only one who’d like to see how a career politician fares on her first-ever ski jump?
And I have a whole list of people I’d love to volunteer for a luge run.
All I’m saying is that these athletes who are competing in sports most of us only encounter once every four years have put in incredible levels of work and sacrifice. This little addition to the programming would help us appreciate it all the more.
But there’s another fringe benefit, too.
These world-class athletes are so good, they make what they do look easy. Seeing the schlubs struggle would remind us that it’s actually not. And then, perhaps it would dawn on us that when they were just starting, those world-class athletes probably looked more like the schlubs than Olympians.
And then maybe, just maybe, we’d let go of the foolishness we carry around and give ourselves some grace. Maybe we’d finally let go of the pressure of scoring a perfect 10 the first time we try something new. Maybe we’d finally realize that when we feel like the schlub slipping around, making a fool of himself that first time, it’s…normal.
Don’t let the fear of failure or looking foolish keep you from starting.
It takes a long time and lots of practice to make something look easy.
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