With the 2024 Summer Olympics ending last weekend, no longer will I have to endure discussions about stolen victories and medal tallies, or the endless, real-time commentaries of ongoing matches on messaging apps (at least, for another four years). I have never liked sports, whether as a spectator or participant. I have no patience for complicated rules, nor the nationalistic chest-thumping that comes with international competitions.
I do not like excessive physical exertion and I have poor hand-eye coordination. I take brisk walks for my cardiovascular health, but more so because I like the beautiful, well-tended public park that I walk in. I lift moderately heavy weights to keep my muscles toned.
But I am secretly glad whenever it rains and I have to skip my walk that day or the trip to the gym. Having said that, there were some interesting things about the 2024 Olympics that caught my attention. There was the sharpshooter from Turkey who went onto the shooting range looking like a dad on his way to the corner store for a pack of cigarettes.
There were the unsubstantiated assumptions from various quarters that athletes from China were cheating by using performance-enhancing drugs. And there was the row over the genders of Algeria’s Imane Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who competed in the women’s boxing events. Based on the appearance of Khelif and Lin, and the fact that both had previously failed gender eligibility tests administered by professional sports bodies, �.