With all 339 Olympic medals awarded, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games have come to an end. The fact that the games took place the year after the name suggests will be a lasting reminder that they were significantly impacted by the global pandemic. In fact, some would say that the Olympics encompassed the worst of our pandemic-ridden world. At a time when most foreigners were excluded from being inside Japan at all – never mind from Olympic stadiums – the global elite could still attend while everyone else watched at home.
At the same time, however, it’s hard to begrudge the athletes their moment, after four long years of training became five, with a significant part of it carried out in very difficult circumstances. Even in normal years, so many Olympic stories are those of triumph over adversity - never mind preparing yourself for an event which was postponed for a year, with cancellation looking a possibility right up until the moment it finally began.
However if there was ever an Olympic Games to remind us that there’s more to life than winning and losing, surely it was this one. For a start, the Covid backdrop has been a reminder that life is a gift that none of us can take for granted. On top of that, perhaps the biggest headline of the Olympics was four-time gold medallist Simone Biles pulling out of the women’s gymnastics team final to focus on her mental health.
While some attacked her as a quitter, it was heartening to see that such comments were only by a minority. Let’s not forget that Biles was abused for years by team doctor Larry Nassar, who in the words of her lawyer, is ‘the worst child predator in American history’. Although he was convicted and jailed in 2018, the US Department of Justice report into FBI failings in the case was only released days before this year’s Olympics began.
One of the most moving responses to Biles’ withdrawal was by Rachael Denhollander, the lawyer and former gymnast who was the first person to publicly accuse Nassar. Denhollander shared a picture from a children’s book she had written in the wake of the trial. The book is entitled ‘How much is a little girl worth?’ – one of the questions Denhollander had repeatedly asked in her victim impact statement. The page from the book she shared said that a little girl was worth ‘more than money or trophies or fame’.
It’s a sentiment that many would agree with – but it does raise the question of who defines a little girl’s worth? In fact, who defines anyone’s worth? The answer to that is surely their Creator. And in fact, that’s the answer that Denhollander gives in the introduction to her book. She wants each of her own girls to know that ‘she is of infinite worth because she is made in the image of her Redeemer’.
Once we come to that realisation, it sets us free from thinking we are defined by our performance. It sets us free from pride if we win and despair if we don’t. It sets us free from the emptiness that many talk about when they finally achieve their dreams, but still feel empty inside.
My highlight from this year’s games has been listening to interviews given by those who’ve discovered something ‘Greater than Gold’ (to quote the title of 2012 gold medallist diver David Boudia’s autobiography). This includes South African swimmer Tatjana Schoenmaker, who won gold and set a new 200-metre breaststroke record while wearing a swimming cap emblazoned with ‘Soli Deo Gloria’ – ‘To God alone be the glory’. It includes the Fijian men’s rugby team who marked their gold medal winning defeat of New Zealand by singing a hymn based on Revelation 12:11. It includes Welsh swimmer Daniel Jervis who said in the interview following his 5th place 1500m freestyle finish that the most important thing about him is that he’s a Christian, and he was just grateful to be representing God.
The quote that sums it up best came from Australian high jumper Nichola McDermott. Shortly before her silver medal winning performance, she told the Guardian: ‘I keep the focus on making my identity outside of sport – I do sport, but it’s not who I am. That’s been the breakthrough for me – realising that my performance does not determine my identity. Once you do that, you realise that it doesn’t matter whether you win the Olympics or come last. Faith for me was realising that I am loved regardless of performance’.
Surely that is greater than gold!
Published in the Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, 19th August 2021
