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Perhaps this connection is tied to the dreams of peaceful coexistence that the Games seem to promote. "The ideological differences between the Greeks of Sparta and Athens were fully as profound as those between the Soviet Union and the United States today," says Historian and Journalist I.F. Stone. "Nevertheless the Games provided the chief Pan Hellenic festival at which all Hellenic peoples came together under a kind of truce on war and politics." No sports fan, by his own admission, and no cockeyed optimist either, Stone nonetheless sees the early Games as "a symbol of badly needed unity among the peoples, just as the Olympic Games today could be a symbol of unity among all members of the human race." The question is what power such a symbol has, and how long its effects survive. It is easy to point to the 1,503-year hiatus between Emperor Theodosius' suspension and Baron De Coubertin's resuscitation of the Games and conclude that the world did not need them, but the world has only painted itself into its deadly corner in the past 40 years. If, as Stone says, the Games really are a symbol of the "human fraternity," who these days would remove such a symbol?
Or is the appeal of the Games simpler than all this? What one has here, after all, are simple contests, simple consequences, the simple delight of observers at basic human activities. Remove the 8,000 banners, the 52 miles of fencing, and the scene is pastoral. Someone jumps or throws a discus. Someone swims. People play ball. Close out the noise, remove the fancy equipment, and one could feel that the Games show the world rediscovering itself in absolute serenity and innocence. Nothing is supposed to be innocent any more, of course, but it is hard to read corruption in the 400-meter freestyle.
In a few days, gridlock. Los Angeles airport will quake with arriving jets. The freeways will turn to stone. Athletes will start digging into the 70,000 dozen eggs. The 3,500 construction workers, having put up the bleachers and the Styrofoam signs, will relax at home, ready to watch ABC'S closeups and moments of Olympic history and expert analyses. No, the hotel never got your reservation. Sorry, this ticket is good only for the first round of archery. The world will look at California, which in turn will look as laid back as Edvard Munch's The Scream. Yet the place should survive. For the moment there is a mixture of frenzy, anticipation and smog. This Saturday the final torchbearer will be prepared to do the final leg, the name of the runner kept secret till the last minute by L.A.O.O.C. President Peter Ueberroth, who, after five years of haggling, deserves some fun.