Olympics couldn’t come at a better time

Been a weird year. From adjusting to the new life at the Post, to working my full-time job, and balancing everything in between, it’s like I’ve been on autopilot at times.
Typically, by the time July rolls around, I’m laser focused on football, from both a preparation for high school standpoint, and from a fan standpoint.
There’s zero question that Saturdays in the fall are my favorite time of the the year.
I’ve got a pretty set routine of waking up at 8 a.m. to finish my high school football coverage from Friday nights and get that content posted online, followed by college football pregame shows and then 12 hours of non-stop college football on three TVs in my living room, complemented with all the proper tailgate food trimmings.
I seriously get excited for little else.
With life going at Mach 3 for me, I almost didn’t realize how close we are to one of my other favorite times—the Olympics.
For 16 days, the best athletes of the world get to measure up from the popular and noteworthy sports, to the obscure and often forgotten about.
I feel like the 2024 Paris Olympics can’t come at a better time.
Taking a look around society, we’re a fractured nation because of political ideologies, socioeconomic issues, and countless other fractures among the populous.
For 16 days from the end of July through August, we get to forget all of that and stand behind one banner.
There’s something special about competing in the Olympics that people found in ancient times, there’s more honor in beating someone in a sport than killing them on a battlefield and I think there’s an inherent beauty in that.
Honor within sport is something I think everyone identifies with.
But hearing non-million dollar athletes win their respective sports and stand atop the podium while the national anthem is played—it just seems like all the politics and issues of the world just go away and we’re united again as a nation behind those who represent us on sports’ biggest stage.
I mean for crying out loud, I’ve been probably one of the critics of LeBron James, for one reason or another, since I started my journalism career—and even I’m hoping he gets his third gold medal.
I’m excited for the Games to start. It’s a special time for us as a nation and hopefully those who represent us can once again unite us all, even if its just for 16 days late in the summer.
Chris Siers is sports editor of the Marshall County Post. Email him at csiers@bedfordcountypost.com.