Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

Fifty-two years ago this August, while feeding my infant son, I watched the 1972 Summer Olympics that were held in Berlin. Because he was on the every-four-hour feeding schedule, I watched the games in real time in the middle of the night.

And I was witness to the capture and eventual assassination of eleven Israeli athletes in the village compound by members of the militant group Black September. It was horrifying. Still, the games went on . . .

There have been other events to mar this meeting of the world’s best athletes. As far back as 1936, when the Nazi Party in Germany rose to power, many Western countries boycotted that Olympics. How ironic that the Israeli massacre occurred in the same country decades later.

In 1996, the Atlanta Olympics was rocked by a bombing in Centennial Olympic Park. In addition, there have been boycotts, drug use accusations, and challenges to medals more often than not.

Now it’s 2024, and the Olympics’ torch is lit again, this time in Paris. I believe the organization is rife with  all kinds of problems – bureaucracy, graft, greed, unsustainability in its present state – but when I see the top athletes of the world’s countries coming together to compete against one another while still feeling affection for each other and their respective sports, I am inspired.

Would that politicians behaved that way.