Having got the Election, the Euro’s and Wimbledon out of the way, we now have the Olympics and for the next fortnight the news, the papers, and the television schedules will be dominated by the games and whether this is just the sort of news we have been looking forward to, or we are irritated at the thought of our normal lives being interrupted yet again, the Olympics is always a massive event in the life of the world. I always find myself watching and the main Olympics and the Paralympics give me sermon fodder for weeks to come, which is quite handy.
In my vain attempt to look smart, the original Olympic motto was Citus – Altius – Fortius which according to Wikipedia means Faster, Higher, Stronger and during the course of the games we see athletes in a whole range of disciplines performing at their very best. Over the years I have read a string of autobiographies penned by some of the world’s top Olympic competitors, mainly gold medal winners, I have come to understand something of the enormous investment of time, discipline, effort, and total dedication involved in becoming the very best, at the top of their game.
A fourth word was included in the motto in July 2021 by the international Olympic committee and the wording was changed to “Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together” and given all that the world had experienced through the Covid pandemic, the word “together” spoke volumes and meant so much to all of us. One of the costs of the pandemic was that having spent years working hard to compete in 2020, the Olympics were delayed until 2021, this must have been devastating for those who had invested everything they had into the games.
In the modern world we are perhaps all guilty of wanting the maximum reward for the minimum investment, that is why so many people go out and buy lottery tickets every week, in the hope that by investing just a couple of pounds, they might just become multi-millionaires. The core message that we learn from the Olympics is thar in addition to natural talent, winning at the highest levels requires hard work, discipline and commitment. I don’t think that is bad moral for life.