I know, I know, I pledged to blog more consistently and considering the amount of time that has passed since my last blog post, that clearly went out the window. I’ll at least refrain from making another similar promise this time around.
In any case, it has been a couple weeks since the closing ceremonies of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games and aside from the fact that I’m still mildly annoyed that I wasn’t in attendance, I have to say that the games themselves were mostly a success and I wasn’t expecting that to be the case. Admittedly, I had to be convinced to watch the action in Rio and since I had no intention of doing so, I didn’t tune in until the track and field competition began in the second week. However, not only was the action itself, and the stories that came out of it, top notch, but I’ve heard only good things from friends who had been in attendance. I love sport, I love the Olympic Games and the Olympic movement, and of course, I love track and field so my expectations for the performances of the athletes were no different than it would have been for any Olympic Games. Everything else, as far as logistics and the administration of the games was concerned, is what I didn’t have particularly high hopes for. I am glad that I was mistaken…for the most part. Hindsight is no doubt 20/20 but much like the country did with the World Cup a couple years ago, Brazil shocked the world and I am glad they did. That’s not to say that there weren’t still issues and that there won’t be residual issues that may cause Rio’s selection to be still called into question, but for those two weeks in August (and hopefully during the time of the upcoming Paralympic Games), things went as well as one could have hoped.
I don’t have a favorite moment from the Olympics and that’s simply because there were so many amazing stories and results to speak of and because of that, the Olympics were thankfully as exciting and entertaining as usual. I’m not even going to comment on the idiocy of Ryan Lochte and his teammates because it absolutely already detracted far too much from the athletes in Rio. All in all, I’m glad that I was convinced to tune in and I have to say that compared to what the world expected leading up to the opening ceremonies, with all of the nonsense that had been reported throughout the summer, the Olympics were a success.
On my end, I’m simply enjoying the tail end of my off season. I shut my season down at the end of July after not qualifying for Rio and have been resting and recovering since then. Ideally, 2017 will be my last year competing and I will have the opportunity to represent Haiti, as well as my friends and family, in one last global championships next August at the World Championships in London. How fitting it would be to end things in the same place where I competed in my first Olympic Games.
