As the Beijing Olympic Games came to a close today, some thoughts started stirring…

First, I came across this amazing data model from The New York Times.  It not only shows this year’s medal count, but the counts from over 100 hundred years of past Games.  I think it’s a fabulous way to show data over time, the changes are far more obvious than a bunch of bars or even the raw data.

Some of the changes in medal counts and top or even participating countries are easily explained, such as in the boycotts in the early 1980’s.  Others are not so obvious.  I confess my first instinct was to assume cheating by the host country when looking at the 1896 and early 1900’s counts.  Upon further consideration, I think it more likely due to the great difficulty and expense of travel in those days which meant more athletes from the host country were present than the significant global participation we see today.  At least I hope that’s the cause!  It would be a shame if the modern Olympics have been dogged all along by biased judging, underage participants or doping charges.

This then led me down the murky path of “way back when…”  I was a horse-crazy little girl, and my Olympic dreams looked something like the storyline of National Velvet.  Though I have become an accomplished horsewoman, I have little skill nor experience compared to the athletes competing today. I still have Olympic dreams though, and they manifest around world peace.  Trite or improbable it may be, but what if we take a lesson from the ancient olympic truce, which in theory allowed safe travel to Olympia and to varying degrees stopped/prevented some fighting for a bit, and apply it to our modern Games?

Maybe we’ll get used to the quiet…the pointless bombs and shooting would stop, families would stop weeping, 24/7 news networks would go dark and politicians would have to quit their confused yammering about “withdrawal horizons” or how the “US doesn’t torture” and actually solve a problem or two to stay in office…truly Olympic dreams!