How I Learned to Relax and Love Olympic Diving

Haydn James Fogel

When LeBron James was in the 2004 Olympics, I wondered if I would be able to sleep in high school for another three years. When he won gold at the 2008 Olympics, I was trying to decide what my future career would be. After his victory in the 2012 Games, I still had no idea where I wanted to go with my life, but I had a feeling I would find the answers outside of the United States. Now I have a family and a career in China, and James just won his third Olympic gold medal. People change eventually, but sports are eternal.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed a shift in the sports conversation at work and on Chinese social media. There seems to be an increasing emphasis on celebrating athletes and their stories, rather than their achievements. The old tradition of chiding athletes for not going for gold is being replaced by admiration for character. It doesn’t matter that Zhou Yaqin won a silver medal; everyone fell in love with her “little sister energy” when she saw her Italian colleagues scoop up their medals, and she imitated the tradition.

As the gold medal battle between the US and China slowly moved toward a draw, one of my colleagues said, “Who cares? Everyone at the Games worked hard to be there. They already won.”

I think she was right. In fact, her statement betrays a profound introspection into the universality of sporting competition and the sacrifices that everyone must make to achieve their dreams.

We project ourselves onto Olympic athletes. James may be an impossible human specimen, engineered in a lab to consume the hopes and dreams of future basketball champions, but he also has gray in his beard, just like me. And yes, I once mimicked my older brother’s cool demeanor, just like Zhou.

James on Team USA was my reason to watch again after all these years, but it was my Chinese partner who encouraged me to follow Chen Yiwen, Pan Zhanle and a badminton gold/marriage proposal doubles feature. For her, these were stories of human triumph.

During the 2008 Games, I could only be bothered to follow American athletes. They spoke my language and moved with my culture. I was young.

A broader grasp of world knowledge has given me the space to introspect and get a sense of who I am. The more I have learned about myself, the more I see myself in others. I see myself in my partner, my colleague, James, Zhou and all the other athletes representing different countries at the Games.

It would be fun to debate what’s more impressive, Chen Yiwen’s physics-defying drop dive (seriously, is she made of feathers?) or Grandpa James’ soft layup after a 360-degree spin in traffic, but ultimately that misses the point. We mourn their losses with them and lift them up in their success. They’re human, just like us.

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