Passing the Baton

Life goes on

I found myself watching much more of the Olympics than I had intended. If the ratings and anecdotal evidence I’ve gathered from family and friends are any indication, I am not alone.

Over the last few weeks, I have been awed by incredible feats of strength, speed, and skill. I have cheered and felt pangs of sadness at the countless moments of triumph and disappointment. I loved how much NBC focused on the sports and how they shared a sense of the Olympic’s rich history. I found myself immersed in my own physicality as I watched — my heart rate racing along with the racers.

I am proud of all the wonderful athletes from the United States, and it is also exciting to root for people from all over the world.

Through it all, I felt a profound sense of joy.

Few international gatherings seem to dominate global attention quite like the Olympics. We know they are coming, yet they feel almost overwhelming when they arrive. Thousands of athletes and countless more fans pour into a city for dozens of events. And back home, wherever home may be, millions more watch despite the sometimes challenging juggling of time zones.

There is such a sheer amount of activity that no single person can process all of it. We dip in and out of a torrent of games, matches, and races. Most names we have never heard of, and many come from countries that barely register on our daily radar. Even the most popular sports—swimming, gymnastics, and track and field—are ones we mostly pay attention to on a quadrennial basis.

At its best, the Olympics provide us with a sense of how big and vibrant this world is and that we have the power, should we choose to do so, to come together in a spirit of friendly competition and general camaraderie.

But as I watched the final night of the Olympics, witnessing more gold medals being won by the American men and women on the track, the basketball court, and the soccer field, I felt a set of thoughts I didn’t expect. It was as if I were launched from the action in Paris into deeper territory like a gymnast springboarding into a spinning vault.

The Games, like everything else in life, must come to an end.

Life is fleeting. Even for most of us who will never understand what it’s like to compete at the highest level of sports, we know that our activities, careers, families, and very existence occupy temporary parcels of time. We prepare as best we can for our moment and try to enjoy it while we have it because we know it will invariably end.

There is an old saying that “athletes die twice.” The physical traits that define sports are generally limited to youthful bodies that invariably age. Sometimes, entire careers can end in an instant with injury. We see this in sports many of us follow regularly, like baseball, football, or basketball. But the Olympics heighten this reality where years of training can come down to a few hundredths of a second. It is not surprising that many Olympic athletes, and athletes more generally, talk about coping with mental struggles in the wake of competition. Imagine if something that dominated your sense of identity and defined your childhood came to a complete end so abruptly in your twenties.

But in some sense, it doesn’t matter when that realization comes.

It has been a strange coincidence that the Olympics overlapped with the rise of the Harris-Walz campaign. There was joy in Paris and joy in boisterous swing-state rallies. There was energy on the track and in the pool. And there was energy at the podium.

Watching it all, I couldn’t help but think of President Biden and the heart-wrenching realization he had to come to about his own ability to contend with aging. What must it be like to watch his vice president’s campaign take off? I imagine he is likely brimming with pride as he processes the other feelings that are inevitably coming up. I know he made his decision because he ultimately loves this country more than his personal ambition. But of course that doesn’t mean it is easy to confront the end of what once defined you.

Dan Rather would often say the work we were doing in journalism was ephemeral. When I was a young reporter at CBS News, I didn’t believe it, or at least didn’t get it. We were part of a global journalistic enterprise doing work that mattered. But by the time I arrived, network news was already in decline. Edifices that once dominated the landscape now no longer do. Time eats away at everything and all of us. Change is inevitable.

We know that the athletes we see for sometimes mere seconds on our screen have spent years training and toiling to get to this moment. Some might say this effort is wasted when many more essential things deserve our attention. But pushing oneself and following one’s passions have always been part of being human.

It is fitting that the final events in track and field are the relays. Could there be a better metaphor for the end of the Olympics? These athletes have had their moment and will then hand off to those who will follow. In four years, we will gather in Los Angeles, where many of the faces will be new, ready for their time to shine in the spotlight.

In a relay, your job is to run your leg as best you can and hope you have done enough to pass the baton to those who will keep running.

We can see that in sports, politics, and life itself.