These Are the First Optimistic Olympics in a Long Time

The world isn’t looking too stable, so why not watch some Paris badminton with Al Roker?

It is wild that the Summer Olympics are starting Friday. In the middle of [looks around] all this, we’re supposed to all suddenly gather ‘round our NBC affiliates and start getting emotional about the national anthem? I don’t know anyone in this country who hasn’t been in at least some sort of national panic for a month now (even if, after Sunday’s dramatic news, there’s considerably more optimism in the air). But sure, let’s go cheer for LeBron to dunk on some dude from Japan.

The Summer Olympics are like the old Hemingway line about bankruptcy: They come at you gradually, and then suddenly. Paris announced its intention to host this year’s Summer Games back on June 23, 2015 — one week after Trump descended his escalator — and the event has essentially transformed whole swaths of the city, for better or worse, since it officially won hosting duties in 2017. This is the first year that an Olympics has been held during a Presidential election year since 2016—remember, the Japan games were pushed back to 2021 because of the pandemic—and the only real political talk during those games, held in Rio de Janeiro, involved various athletes calling then-obviously-going-to-lose candidate Trump an idiot. So much has happened since then, and so much has culminated in the last three weeks — both in the United States and France, of course. You find your head spinning, and then looking up and seeing the Olympics barreling toward you: Wow, you’re back already?

The good news is that the Olympics are the ultimate made-for-TV event, which allows NBC to milk it for maximalist, all-four-quadrants consumption. It might not always be easy to lose yourself in the soft-focus human interest stories, the spirit of competition, the underdog stories that inevitably pop up out of nowhere. But if you allow the Olympics to sweep you away, they’re still the ultimate sporting event for sports fans and non-sports fans alike, a place where you can get lost in badminton or rhythmic gymnastics, and almost instantly transform yourself into the world’s foremost expert on these esoteric pursuits. It’s not the worst thing to have a place where everyone can gather together, tune out the seismic world events happening every 12 minutes, and just watch Italy play Qatar in beach volleyball. Plus, Al Roker will be there.

Here’s a look at the 10 top storylines you’ll need to know heading into these games, which begin Friday night with the Opening Ceremonies.

This is the first time anyone has felt optimistic about the Olympics in decades.
One of the great jokes of the Olympics is that countries spend billions of dollars both bidding on and preparing for the honor to host them, and inevitably end up not only losing unspeakable amounts of money but looking like disorganized fools in the process. The Olympics are almost never worth it: They’re the global equivalent of tax hikes for new football stadiums that never end up paying off for the taxpayers. But this year, this year, it might be different? For the first time in memory, it looks like the Paris Games might actually break even, and there is a legitimate sense of optimism among organizers that the usual problems with infrastructure, housing, and transit that plague every Olympics — problems that inspire endless chatter before the Games begin and are then completely ignored once they get going — might be avoided here. You keep hearing the words “reboot” and “revival” in reference to these Olympics, a general sense that the ugliness of the last few Olympics (there was the pandemic, the one hosted by Putin, and various drug scandals) could be washed away by a well-run Games in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. This could all go south, of course; everyone’s worried about a terrorist attack, always a major concern at the Olympics. But I don’t remember the last time every story about an upcoming Olympics wasn’t about it was all about to go to shit.

There’s shit in the Seine.
Oh, yes, with this clear exception: The Olympic swimming events are taking place in the Seine, which sounds picturesque and exciting except for the small problem that there might be too much poop in the water. The mayor of Paris recently swam in the Seine to show her confidence; I will let you sift out the metaphor of a poop-covered politician to your heart’s content. Organizers are hopeful the Seine will be ready by the time events begin, but it is unclear, even at this point, what level of poop in the water is low enough to meet the scientific definition of “ready.”

Simone Biles goes for God-level status.
All right, let’s talk about something positive: The athletes. And there’s no more impressive athlete at these Games than Simone Biles, who is competing in her third Olympic Games and going for her fifth (and more) Gold Medals. Biles famously withdrew from the Tokyo Games after suffering from the “twisties,” an admission that won her millions more admirers, not fewer, and she comes into the Games not just several times more famous than she was then (and she was pretty famous at the time) thanks in part to an incredibly entertaining and honest Netflix documentary, but also as the overwhelming favorite to win a whole bunch of hardware. You can make a legitimate argument that Biles is the most dominant athlete in these Games — ESPN just named her the seventh-greatest athlete this century, and the only person above her on that list who’s competing in Paris is LeBron James — and this promises to be the capstone of her remarkable career. Until she does it again in four years.

The best U.S. men’s basketball team since the Dream Team … unless they lose.
How many future Basketball Hall of Famers are on this year’s Team USA? LeBron, Steph, Durant, Embiid, AD, Ant Man, Tatum … jeez, are all these guys going to be in the Hall? Team USA has won four straight Gold Medals, seven of the last eight, and 16 of 19 all-time, and they got almost total buy-in from the sport’s top stars. They’ll need it, because they’re facing a series of stacked countries, from host France (with Victor Wembanyama), Serbia (with the best player in the world, Nikola Jokic) and Canada (which might be their top challenger). That wouldn’t seem to be too daunting for a team this stacked, but then again, Team USA did just almost lose to South Sudan, a country that has existed for less than 15 years. The top three players, LeBron, Curry and Durant, are unlikely to win another NBA title in their careers. This might be the last time we see them triumphant. If they’re triumphant.

Another dominant U.S. women’s basketball team that apparently can only lose to itself.
No team, in any Olympic sport, has been more overwhelmingly successful than the U.S. women’s team: They have won the last seven Gold Medals, are 70-3 lifetime and have not lost a game in Olympic competition since 1992. They’re heavily favored to win another Gold this year, but it should be noted that they just lost a thrilling, fantastic game to the WNBA All-Star team, full of players (including Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese) who weren’t selected for the Paris squad. That game put even more steam in the locomotive that is women’s basketball right now. Is there any way we can get Clark, Reese, Arike Ogunbowale and company to pretend to be from, like, Belgium or something and let them challenge this team?

It’s going to look gorgeous in Paris.
You hear that the Olympics are going to be in Paris, and you imagine what that might look like, and then you see the beach volleyball court:

The beach volleyball court at the Paris Olympics has the most UNREAL backdrop ????????

(via @Paris2024)
pic.twitter.com/RIjaU6aZKU

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) July 12, 2024

(Just don’t get in the water.)

Sha’Carri Richardson gets her moment.
Even accounting for Biles — and with apologies to Katie Ledecky, the swimming superstar who has already won five Gold Medals and is well on her way to more — the most compelling USA athlete in these Games is Sha’Carri Richardson. The sprinter, who won the World Championship in the 100-meter dash last month, was a favorite heading into the Olympic trials three years ago when she tested positive for marijuana before U.S. qualifying, kicking her out of the competition. If you think it’s pretty ridiculous for an athlete to miss the Games for a substance that has nothing to do with performance, you’re not alone. But Richardson hasn’t whined — instead, she’s been hesitant to talk about the positive test (she wouldn’t discuss it in a Vogue cover story). And she has become a U.S. icon of strength and resilience ahead of these Games, not just because of the disqualification but also the death of biological mother and her struggles with depression. Perhaps no victory will feel like more of a breakthrough, and a vindication than Richardson’s. How inspiring has she been for people? They’re getting tattoos of her face on their arms.

The US women’s soccer team tries to move on.
It has been a rough few years for the USWNT. They fell out of first place in the FIFA rankings for the first time in a decade, and during the last Olympics they, absurdly, had to deal with whole swaths of the country rooting against them. This is the first tournament for new coach Emma Hayes, who leads a younger group that, in many ways, feels like a pivot away from the breakthrough teams led by Megan Rapinoe and that golden generation. The World Cup will always be the real measure for the USWNT, but they’d love to get back to their usual spot, looking down on the rest of the globe, and the Olympics are a terrific place to start.

There’s breakdancing at this Olympics.
It’s going to be awesome. It’s about time someone named B-Boy Victor won a Gold Medal.

Breakdancing, rooted in New York's hip hop culture, debuts at this year's Paris Summer Olympics. Luke Burbank talks with Victor Montalvo (a.k.a. B-Boy Victor), who will be competing for Olympic gold. pic.twitter.com/sLDrl9uO17

— CBS Sunday Morning ???? (@CBSSunday) July 3, 2024

So, are America and France (and others) going to be OK?
Suffice it to say, it has been quite a year in world politics. France just narrowly avoided a Fascist takeover; America is working its way through that itself right now. You might have noticed Russia causing some issues with Europe right now. (Russian athletes will once again be designated “Individual Neutral Athlete” at these games; Russia remains banned.) This does sort of feel like one of those potential pivot Olympics, one we look back at decades from now as taking place against the backdrop of history, for better or worse. Jill Biden’s going to be there, and Marine Le Pen will not. So that’s a start. And hey: Lots of Al Roker.