The Paris Olympics might be exactly what we need right now

This episode discusses the upcoming Paris Olympics, focusing on their potential to unify a politically divided world through sport.

1. The Olympics serve as more than just a sporting event; they are a potential wellspring for global peace and unity.
2. Paris offers a unique opportunity for a "global party," an escape from political tensions.
3. Athletes at the Olympics often symbolize more than their individual achievements; they represent their countries on a world stage.
4. The episode discusses the historical impact of the Olympics in promoting peace and how personal athlete stories inspire and unify people.
5. Despite political overtones, the Games strive to maintain an apolitical space, fostering friendly competition among nations.

1: The promise of the Olympics

Cathal Kelly discusses the potential of the Paris Olympics to be a joyful, unifying event post-COVID, contrasting it with past Games that were overshadowed by politics or other constraints. Cathal Kelly: "It's gotten progressively less fun...but I'm hopeful for Paris."

2: Beyond the sports

Kelly elaborates on how the Olympics serve as a diplomatic tool, offering a rare opportunity for countries in conflict to engage positively, fostering a global spirit of peace. Cathal Kelly: "It's about enemies being friendly."

3: Canada's role and expectations

Discussion on what constitutes a successful Olympics for Canada, emphasizing the shift in focus from merely winning medals to showcasing national unity and pride. Cathal Kelly: "Now, we're just there to compete and represent our country well."

4: Personal reflections

Cathal Kelly shares personal anecdotes from past Olympics, illustrating the profound impact and enduring memories the Games create both for athletes and spectators. Cathal Kelly: "The Olympics are not just about records; it's about how they make you feel."

1. Embrace opportunities for cultural exchange and unity in your community, inspired by the Olympic spirit.
2. Promote sports and physical activities as tools for peace and personal development.
3. Support local and national athletes, recognizing their role as ambassadors of goodwill.
4. Encourage dialogue and understanding among different communities, reflecting the Olympic ethos of global unity.
5. Stay informed about the broader social and cultural impacts of international events like the Olympics.

The Globe and Mail’s Cathal Kelly has high hopes for the upcoming Olympic Games in Paris. He thinks that 2012 was the last great Olympics and right now, with so much conflict and division, the world really needs a global event to rally around.

He explains what the Olympics offer beyond the highest competition for amateur athletes, as well as, what Canada has to do to have a successful Games and which Canadians may end up becoming cultural heroes.

People

Cathal Kelly, Mainneke Ramon Wilms

Content Warnings:

None

Vas Bednar
Welcome to lately a new Globe and Mail podcast. I'm Vas Bednar, and every Friday I'm going to be having a conversation about big defining trends in business and technology that are reshaping our everyday find lately. Wherever you get your podcasts.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
So how are you feeling about the Paris Games?

Cajal Kelly
I'm feeling incredibly upbeat. I think this is going to be the first fun games in a long time. So I'm very excited to see what they've managed.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
Cajal Kelly is a columnist at the Globe and Mail whose specialty is capturing how sports and culture intersect. He's headed to Paris to cover the upcoming Olympics. You've covered, I think, six Olympics now.

Cajal Kelly
You've covered six. You're right. I added it up this morning. This will be my 7th.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
So, I mean, have, I guess, over time, have they lost a bit of their shine? Are you feeling that at all?

Cajal Kelly
I actually do. I was thinking about, like, I ranked them in my own personal ranking, and I started off on the high, which was London 2012, which was amazing. And then it just got steadily worse until, you know, Beijing, the prison Olympics, because you couldn't go anywhere and you couldn't talk to anyone. You couldn't see anyone because of COVID Because of the COVID So, I mean, it's gotten progressively less. It's always fun. Let's say that this is not another journalist complaining about a free trip to the Olympics, but it has gotten progressively less and less fun. Certainly less fun for the people who aren't journalists, who are going to see it.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
But this games you're thinking is going to be different.

Cajal Kelly
I think this has the potential. I think people are. Now there's a really pent up, built up, a feeling that people would like a big global party that isn't suffused with politics or political meaning. I think people want a bit of a respite from that. And the Olympics is meant to provide that.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
So today on the show, Cajal is going to discuss the great promise of the Olympics, whether Paris can live up to it, and how Canada is expected to perform.

I'm Mainneke Ramon Wilms, and this is the decibel from the Globe and Mail.

Cathal, it's great to have you here.

Cajal Kelly
It's good to be here. Thanks for having me.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
So let's just start by talking about the Olympics itself. Cajal, obviously, this is the biggest international competition for amateur athletes. But beyond the athletics at this point in time, what do the Olympics offer the world?

Cajal Kelly
I think it is that idea that it is an apolitical space. Of course it isn't. It isn't actually, but it's aspirationally apolitical, a point at which enemies can come together. This isn't about friends being friendly. It's about enemies being friendly. That's what the Olympics is supposed to offer at its best. A point at which representatives from either country, perhaps on either side of a war or some sort of conflict, can come together in friendly competition and prove to their fellow citizens that such things are possible. And out of that is a wellspring of peace. Possibly. But this, I think, is what the Olympics can offer going forward. I think it's why it's such an important idea. I think we've gotten a little sidetracked with the athletics part of it. The sport is not the thing. The sport is the vehicle. The idea is getting the whole world together.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
This is a really interesting thing to talk about, especially in the world of today, where we do see a number of conflicts. Right. A lot of division.

You've been to a number of games yourself. Is there a particular games that you remember that, I guess, shows us this example of what an Olympics could be when it really shined.

Cajal Kelly
Pyeongchang was that idea of north and South Korea, though it was aspirational, but didn't quite manage it. But, I mean, that they tried was amazing to watch you see it in little interactions between athletes. I mean, there's always going to be examples of athletes who we've seen in the past couple of Olympics, instances where athletes won't compete against each other because their countries are in conflict. But more often than not, what you will see is the athletes who are supposed to be from conflicting countries coming together and joining arms. And I think that's such a powerful symbol to the millions of people back home for them, you know, we're lucky enough in Canada that we don't really think about these things too much, but most of the world does. And the Olympics may be the only time that they really see this on television, live in a space that is important.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
You've talked about how the last few Olympic Games, it's been more difficult to get people engaged, but I want to ask you about the first games that you attended in London. Cajal, what was that like?

Cajal Kelly
What made London amazing is because per the usual, there had been huge warnings sent out to the english people, and Londoners in particular, that the games were going to destroy everything, that nothing would work, transportation would collapse, possibly things would start blowing up. You know, it was time to get out, time to leave. And there was also a weird feeling in that country that they were going to fail athletically and embarrass themselves. And by the end of that Olympics, it started out a bit downbeat. You could feel, you know, people were worried. People were off the streets. Streets were pretty empty. You could feel there was some early hiccups, like security problems. But by the end of it, I remember Mo Farah winning a gold medal on the last day just before the closing ceremony. And that city was heaving like, it was wild, like people were in the streets, dancing. Every bar was full. It was just fantastic. It was the epitome of what the Olympics can be. That's a really special cocktail, though, because you don't often get it in the city of that quality and caliber with that much infrastructure, where their team is doing a lot better than they thought, and they're really feeling their oats. It's probably the last great moment for Britain, to be honest. Everything was downhill from there.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
Well, let's. Okay. There's a lot to go through there, but we'll focus on the Olympics for now.

That sounds like you're painting a really wonderful picture of London. Right. And I guess I wonder, we're coming up to the Paris Olympics. The world is very different now from 2012. Right. I think maybe we could argue it was easier to put politics aside then. Is that kind of environment really possible in 2024? It feels like there's more of a risk that things like politics could really bleed into these Paris games.

Cajal Kelly
I think politics will always bleed into the games. That's part of it. It's how it's managed, and that's really up to the athletes. And it's very unfair, I think, to ask a bunch of 22 and 25 and 30 year olds to be the exemplars of good behavior and peaceful intent. But that is what's being asked of them. So it's small gestures made by athletes will determine how the politics of that.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
Work, because they really represent their country in this situation.

Cajal Kelly
So, you know, if you get a Ukrainian punch a Russian on a medal podium, then, you know, that's a statement. If you get a Ukrainian shake hands with a Russian, that's a very different kind of statement will be made. I think also, I wonder if, like, back in 2012, you're right. I mean, it was a very different world, but it was also, you could say and do things.

I think there was a greater freedom that you would be free of consequences. It would not have real world consequences if you came out and said something wild at an Olympics. Now, I think people believe if you were to do, you know, might have real world implications if somebody was to say something really provocative or do something incredibly provocative. So I think that actually might serve to take some of the edgy politics out of it.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
Okay. So in a way, people might not want to go there? In a sense, yeah.

Cajal Kelly
I don't think you'd want to curse out or try to make an international incident happen. If you thought, you know, your country might be lobbing bombs in the next day. I think you might be less likely you would want to be more conciliatory. I suspect this is going to be Olympics where you see a lot of hands across the aisle, where athletes are trying to be seen to be calming influences.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
Let's talk a little bit more about that, because I think we see tensions are really high kind of in general these days, honestly. So tell me a little bit more about that. Since the stakes feel higher, maybe this will be kind of a more open, conciliatory space at the Olympics.

Cajal Kelly
I think that's what the athletes always want. The athletes, it seems to be from talking to them. This is for a lot of them. For most of them, maybe for all of them, it's going to be the greatest moment of their lives. This is the end of years of struggle in many cases. It's never talking to the winner that really moves you. It's talking to the loser or talking to the person who's in the middle of the pack. And they come out just as a glow. Cause they know they've written the first line of their obituary if they were to do nothing else in their lives.

And in that moment, I think people want to make big, hopeful gestures. I think it's just. It's primed for those kind of emotions. That's what the Olympics is about, right? It's not about athletics. And so we talk about the records and how many seconds to do this thing and versus. But what you remember out of is people and emotions, how they made you feel. And I think the athletes nowadays certainly are primed for that. They understand how important it is. And I think most of them want to have an incredible moment in what is probably the biggest stage any of them will ever occupy.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
I want to look back a little bit, because there have, of course, been some incidents at the Olympics that, you know, where things have not gone well.

Of course, the 1972 Olympics in Munich come to mind, where palestinian militants murdered members of Israel's Olympic team. I guess, how do we think about things? And with that in mind, the context of what is possible to happen?

Cajal Kelly
Well, I mean, the Olympics have changed immensely since then. Mostly it's a security operation, like what happened in 72 where you had terrorists jumping a low fence in order to get into the athletes village, along with other athletes, including a bunch of Canadians that night.

Is it inconceivable that could happen again? So that level of violence is always possible. Of course, I don't want to see it, but it's probably unlikely. And I think that experience in Munich really shaped the way the Olympics approached things once again. I think it's a thing people understand how symbolically important it is, and so I'm not sure. I think the Olympics is off limits for most governments, certainly, for that kind of thing.

Can it happen again? Of course, anything can happen, but I think now you'd be picking around the edges of it.

Atlanta is a good example.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
There was a bomb. Yeah, a bombing.

Cajal Kelly
Bombing. But, you know, they went after the spectators in that case. So I guess that's always possible. God, I hope not.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
So violence is one thing. There's also a bit of a history of political protest at Olympics. I'm thinking about that famous image of the black american athletes raising their gloves, fists in the air. That was, I think, during the 1968 games. That was largely considered an act of solidarity with the black civil rights movement. How likely do you think it is that we're going to see athletes making some kind of political statement at these games?

Cajal Kelly
I'm sure there will be a few. The IOC tries to discourage it.

I don't think that works. I think that often backfires, but they don't hammer down on it, which is smart. You haven't seen many, though, for a lot of talk of it. You don't really see it anymore. I don't think anybody wants the attention. What we don't consider often is that the athlete has then overshadowed everything else they've done, and that defines them from that point on. Is that one gesture? I think a lot of athletes don't want that kind of attention, even if they feel strongly about something. So I think they'd be more likely to talk about it outside an olympics rather than try to use the Olympics to do something that is going to trail them around for a long time, probably create a lot of problems if they want to continue doing sports, regardless of what the gesture is. It's just considered such poor etiquette at an Olympics to overshadow the event and to overshadow your colleagues by doing something like that.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
We'll be back in a moment.

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Mainneke Ramon Wilms
All right. So far, Cajal, we've talked about what makes a successful Olympics kind of broadly right in the grand scheme of things. But let's actually look at the idea of a successful Olympics for Canada now. So what qualifies as a successful supper games in Paris for us?

Cajal Kelly
I just did a column on this, so I had a little think about it myself. I pinned it to the idea that own the podium was proposed. This idea that Canada, this program that was designed to peak performance for canadian.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
Athletes, this is a lot of government money, is going to be a lot.

Cajal Kelly
Of government money, and it's multifaceted. It's not just on the podium. It's just a lot of money flowing in, in a more targeted way. So rather than giving the Olympic program a bunch of money, they would figure out the things that we were really good at, make sure that they got well funded so that a fourth place finisher could become a first place finisher.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
So very targeted funding.

Cajal Kelly
Yeah. And it was a controversial idea at the time. It was 20 years ago that it was proposed, and Canada had always been pretty competitive, but Canada has become much more competitive per capita. We usually finish in the same neighborhood as a New Zealand or a Netherlands or South Korea at a Summer Olympics. And for our per capita, that's a pretty good neighborhood to be in. I would argue that over the last 20 years that we have done so well, that performance isn't really the thing anymore. Like, we used to sit around Canada. I do remember covering Olympics, London in particular, where people were really gnashing their teeth because we had yet to win a gold into the second week. And, you know, really, that conversation starts so quickly about, are we just a bunch of losers? Like, are we just, do we suck at everything? You know? And it really. Canada's really good at getting down on itself.

And then Rosie McLennan won in trampoline and freed us. And I still remember it was like celebrations in the media center, like, of the small group of Canadians. Like, we were kind of like, which you would never see at a pro event. You know, they were kind of like, yeah, we did it. So now we can relax. I would argue now that Canada has done so well and is so consistently good that this isn't even a consideration anymore. We're not there to achieve a certain number. We're just there to compete. We slug with the best of them. I think it's a wonderful place to be as a Canadian. Our Olympians and our Olympic problem, I would say, is probably the cultural endeavor that most of us agree we're into.

People who aren't readers, don't like books, and people who don't like art, don't go to museums, but people who don't like sports still watch the Olympics in this country. We get behind those athletes, and so they're a wonderful expression of us. And so they're one of the few areas in which Canada. I think one of our problems takes itself seriously. Like, we approach this quite seriously. This is something we're good at, and we puff our chests out a little bit over it. Brings all our squabbling regions together.

Nobody. You know, when you see a Canadian win a gold medal, the first thought in your head is, was that person from Alberta? Was that person from Quebec? Like, we don't think that they're just Canadians.

I think that's why Canadians love the Olympics. Everybody loves the Olympics, but I think Canadians love it especially. And I would also suggest that all Olympics now are successful Olympics for Canada.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
Interesting. So, I mean, when you're talking about this, you know, it's the regional divides kind of disappear. It sounds like it's a bit of an exercise in patriotism then, right? Which the Olympics is, to an extent.

Cajal Kelly
Patriotism comes in and out of fashion. I don't think it's a dirty word in Canada, but it's, you know, in a certain social media, people kind of sneer at it. Canadians don't. Like I said, I don't think we take ourselves very seriously. I think we think it. We're not that good at anything, and it's the reason why we don't produce great culture, which is sad to me. Like, I think if we took ourselves a little more seriously, our tv would be better. We'd watch our own movies. But this is one area in which we do take ourselves seriously, I think own the podium, got over that hump where people are like, why are we spending money on this? And that? People were like, oh, you know, Vancouver winning the gold medal hockey game. That felt good. Let's keep doing that. Like, a couple of gold medals is nice. Having a sprinter who can compete with Usain Bolt, that was interesting. We all liked that, and I think the Olympics puts us over that. Hub, I think we should think about the Olympics more than just during the Olympics.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
You also mentioned how we can latch on to specific people, like Rosie McLennan, who won the gold medal finally. Right? So let's talk a little bit about that, too. Like this connection with specific athletes that comes out of this.

Cajal Kelly
Well, that's. I mean, when you watch the prose, it's like the Seinfeld joke. You know, these days you're just rooting for laundry.

And it's true. You're not really rooting for the person. The person is probably going to go to Boston for more money in a couple of years. But at the Olympics, it's not like people are changing nationalities very often. Like, these are our people. So when they come out and they're just.

They're so overwhelmingly winsome and charming, you know, you never see a canadian athlete out there and think, oh, God, this guy. You know, you very rarely have that feeling. So when you have someone like Penny Alexiouk or Damian Warnerhead, and they're such wonderful representatives of this country. And it's also one of the rare moments I had that feeling after Warner won the decathlon. I was there in Tokyo, and it was in an empty stadium. It was a bit of a letdown, right? Because there's nobody around to cheer them. He comes out, he's the greatest athlete alive because he's just won the Olympic gold medal in decathlon. But what really stuck you? And, of course, because he's won the gold medal, he's the last person out. He's getting stopped by every tv crew before he gets to the print journalists. And so all the other competitors come out. Everybody else who's just. He's just beaten, come out. And they're from all over the place. They were just gushing about Damian Warner, about what a great person he was and how wonderful it was to see someone of that caliber win a gold medal. And it was genuine, like, it was not the put on, you see? And you really.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
Yeah.

Cajal Kelly
You felt. Yeah, that's like. That's one of us. We did this. You feel you share these? You don't, but, you know, maybe you contributed a few nickels, but you feel you share in this accomplishment in a way you never do with professionals. Like you really don't. If the Toronto Maple Leafs win a Stanley cup, it will not feel to me as if I have won a Stanley cup.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
Yeah. And it's like, you know, people overnight become household names. Like, I think like Tessa Virtue, Scott Moyer, Clara Hughes. Like, these are huge icons in Canada.

Cajal Kelly
Yeah, that's. I mean, that's. You have one, especially the ones you don't see coming. Penny Electric is the great example recently, but when somebody just pops out of nowhere and does something amazing, those are the biggest athletes in this country, really. Those are the athletes we value most after the games.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
Like, what kind of status did they hold in the country, in people's minds, I guess.

Cajal Kelly
Well, huge. I mean, that's how, you know, something that happened at the Olympics really matters, if you can remember it a month after the Olympics. And to be honest, there's a structural problem with the Olympics. We always tend to remember the things that happen first, best.

So there's no greater curse at the Olympics than to win a gold medal in the last day. By that point, people are just like, whatever the Olympics are, they still on, but on the first day. I mean, that's the ultimate, if you can manage that.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
Unless it's, like the hockey game or something.

Cajal Kelly
That's absolutely true, but, I mean, so the Olympics is really structurally tilted towards swimmers because they start right at the beginning. Like, summer Macintosh will be the star of this games, not just because she's so good, but because she swims right at the beginning.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
You mentioned summer Macintosh, and there's big expectations for her in the pool.

Who else, I guess, should we keep our eyes out for as the game start?

Cajal Kelly
I mean, you know, the politic answer is, keep an eye out for them all. They're all so great.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
Who are you particularly excited?

Cajal Kelly
I'm particularly interested in summer Macintosh. Obviously, that swim team in general, that women's swim team, which I think has a chance to become sort of an iconic and overwhelming force.

Mostly this is about, I think, of the Olympics mostly as a way of us sticking it to the Americans. So, basketball. I had a friend who was at a July 4 picnic in Wisconsin with his wife's family, and he was telling me that he had very sports interested people. He was meeting there, the family, and they were saying, where do your basketball players come from? Like, where did you get them? And he was like, well, they're canadian. They couldn't accept that they were, like, from here that we had. They couldn't be this good. We must have gone somewhere else to fetch them. America, I assume so, yeah. I'd really like to see the men's basketball team stick it to the States. I'm not sure it's possible, but I would love that. Damian Warner, again, will be a favorite for that decathlon. Medal.

The women's soccer team is always. They're being counted out for the most part, but I don't think so.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
And there's going to be some new events in Paris, too. So I think it's breakdancing that's going to make sense.

Cajal Kelly
I mean, that's my number one. Yeah, I should have said that. Phil wizard is going to be my number one. We have Canada, as you might expect, the world's greatest breakdancer, Phil wizard from BC. I'm really stoked. People are basically handing it to him. It's a crazy event. It's a wild, wild sport. I guess it is a sport. I can't do it if you haven't watched it, like watch that. Make time.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
Can you explain? I have not seen it. How does it work?

Cajal Kelly
They don't know the music before, so they have to be able to perform a routine that has some elements they have to do, but most of it is just purely creativity and they haven't heard the music before it starts. So, I mean, as you can imagine, like, dancing to Led Zeppelin is a little different than dancing to Madonna. So they have to be able to prepared to hear any sort of beat and do something to it. It's incredible to watch because people really crumble under the pressure. He's the best. He's the world champion. Wow.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
Just before I let you go here, Cajal. We've talked about successful games in general. Successful games for Canada, but you yourself are going to be in Paris. You've been to a number of games, I guess. What does the successful Olympic games look like for you?

Cajal Kelly
Oh, just a lot of incident. I have a lot of things. Obviously, I don't want anything terrible to go wrong. Not terrible, terrible, but I'd like a lot of things to go wrong. That's good fun and a lot of things to go right. I just. I want interesting things to happen. Like the worst games for me is where we spend the whole time talking about sports. That would be very boring for me. Like, I like the air conditioning to fail and, you know, all those things. I'm really interested. Air conditioning for very personal reasons. I'm very interested in the air conditioning.

You want to come out of an Olympics having these iconic moments of, you know, I'm thinking of like Muhammad Ali lighting the flame in Atlanta. You want to see something like that, something that, you know, to 20 years from now people will ask you about. That's what I'm looking forward to.

Mainneke Ramon Wilms
Carol, thanks for being here and have a good time in Paris.

That's it for today. I'm Manica Ramon Wells. Our producers are Madeline White, Rachel Levy McLachlan and Michal Stein. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Matt Fraynor is our managing editor.

Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you soon. Soon.