A spectacular event, organized by a multi-specialist team and costing several billion dollars, the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics in a city suffocatingly protected from possible asymmetric threats, against the backdrop of sabotage on the French railways and the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. And a little further away, the multinationals that are playing and waiting to reap the rewards of the commercialization of sport.
Of course, we all know the value of the ancient Olympic Games, with their incomparable Olympic Ideal and the olive industry of the time. The truth is, however, that few are able to observe their current evolution, which is based on undisciplined and destructive competition aimed at economic and political gains, with sport in general and sometimes with athletes trying, in the spirit of the times, to extract the greatest economic benefit.
Therefore, they are more reminiscent of the Roman era, when emperors offered “bread and spectacles” to the crowds to forget their misery. When and which organizer will restore the global Olympic spirit of the Olympic truce? The few exceptions of great athletes who manage to excel competitively always encounter insurmountable obstacles with the cost of their preparation, their professional development and the unfair competition of modern anabolic steroids.
All this, along with many other problems they often face, forces them to be drawn to the altar of publicity, hyperbole and profit of the most recent Olympic Games, unfortunately or fortunately called the Olympic Games. And yes, they are Olympic Games with a strategy of entertaining rather than entertaining and enthusing. How many of us understand the difference between these words to feel and embrace the Olympic ideals? A humanity that vacillates in interests and wars, without the basic education developed by the ancient Greeks, is impossible to escape the Olympic chic. Philosophers honored virtues and values, but not market values, but universal values, which I hope many people on the planet will still embrace.