Thumbs up, Catalunya. A close call, but thumbs up.
When the Olympic flame is doused tonight, all the several faces of this punk village can smile, not only because there will be one less source of heat for an overripe, under-cooled population, but because they pulled it off.
All the problems and the promises become Atlanta`s. What`s left is to sweep up and sleep late, neither of which had much priority here even before the world dropped in.
It was an Olympics of more fun than misery. It had a sense of common joy, for visitor, for local, for celebrity and cipher. Even at its most intolerable, when the security was oppressive, the crowds immobilized and restless, the competitions insignificant and petty, it seemed worth doing.
The signature of these Games will be more than the scenery, which was breathtaking from Mountjuic, or the fountains of the Plaza Espanya, dazzling and backlit, the endless flag-draped balconies or the redundant and remorseless superiority of the Dream Team. It will be the fluttering witnesses at every venue, trying to cool themselves with the national symbol of Spain, the collapsible hand fan, the stands shimmering as if moths were eating a bedspread.
My most lasting memory will be that of Queen Sofia fanning herself with her plastic credential. Yes, even the queen had to have an identity tag, as if they couldn`t have just looked at their money.
The Olympics are too big, too long and too often. Maybe they ought to do this just once a generation and try to squeeze it in over a weekend.
American equestrian Michael Plumb has missed only one Olympics since 1960 and has not yet learned that one of his fellow marchers from Rome changed his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali. Plumb managed in all of that time not to have one memory worth recounting. I do not blame him. Things do seem to run together.
Let`s see, which athlete was in jail, which relative just died and which one`s feet almost fell off? Did that one beat drugs or his coach? The Games overwhelm the players who make them what they are. As usual, we will have to wait for Bud Greenspan to separate the memories for us.
Only the Dream Team remained beyond the homogenization of the event, and was resented for it. Michael Jordan and friends do not need the Olympics, and such independence caused the petty little brand name war. Here`s the skinny on that: You do not bring in a hired gun and tell him how to dress.
I think we made our point about basketball. Now we know how Norway feels in ski jumping. Sometimes you just have to get even. As one of the U.S. archers said before taking on Japan, ”I hope they have their poopoo in a pile, because we are out for revenge.”
Now that our baseball team has missed a medal, I can only assume that Roger Clemens and Ryne Sandberg will be given time off to check the pile in
`96.
The Olympics took more irretrievable steps to complete professionalism, not an entirely happy progression. It seems inevitable that peripheral pursuits, like fencing, like horse jumping, like the modern pentathlon (I suggest they just change the name to the post-modern pentathlon.) will be eliminated for more commercial games. It is easier to make money from the official bowling ball than from the official epee.
The Olympics have room for private sports. Just because no one reads poetry doesn`t mean it shouldn`t exist, though I cherish the wit who scrawled atop a bulletin board press advisory on How to Cover Water Polo: ”Mess up one more time.”
The Games have the happy advantage of luring the best athletes in the world without having to pay them prize money. As long as Gwen Torrence is bawling on the victory stand, Costa Rican hurdlers are shaving the Olympic rings in the back of their heads or Bosnian wrestlers believe they are proving to the world their nation does exist, ceremony is payment enough. The Olympics have to do nothing for the athletes but provide inadequate housing.
British runner Sebastian Coe once advised an Olympic first-timer on how to prepare for the Games: ”Get somebody to lurch into your bedroom at home around 2 in the morning each day with a boombox blaring and fall across the bed.”
The closing ceremonies cannot be worse than the opening ceremonies, which had too much opera and not enough soap.
That`s the first thing I would have changed if I could. I remember Spanish tenor Placido Domingo singing our national anthem at our NBA finals.
The least they could have done is let us send Jim Nabors to sing theirs.
