Carrying the Olympic torch

Let me start by saying I am an idealist when it comes to sports. So, it goes without saying that the only place I will be Friday night is on my couch with my girlfriend and family tuned in to NBC for the start of, in my opinion, the greatest two weeks of sport -- the Olympic Games, (This year it's the 2010 Winter Olympics from Vancouver B.C.)

The Olympics is a time to celebrate the best of ourselves and to live in a world, as Jim McKay so eloquently said before the start of the 2002 games, as we wish it could be. It is a time to put aside our cares, our concerns and our prejudices and watch as thousands of young men and women strive to reach the top of the mountain and, more importantly, to pick themselves up when they fall. It is a time to learn, finally, that the most important things are the things that unite us, not divide us.

The cynic will point to the Olympics as just another opportunity to flaunt one country over another, to boast of medal totals, to anxiously await, disect, and broadcast every controversy, real or imagined -- and to claim that the Olympic ideal is dead.

I say ignore the cynic. Will there inevitably be some controversy? Probably. Will we hear all about what each delegation predicts in terms of medal counts? Definitely. But I challenge everyone to look beyond that. Look to the athletes from countries who will leave Vancouver, hand in hand, with only memories -- and smiles. It is through them that we see what the Olympics are truly about. It is through them that we will see that victory should not be measured in gold, silver and bronze but by the cheers elicited from packed crowds, and the empathy from fellow athletes when one of them falls.

The lessons we take from those images need to be carried through to the rest of our lives. The Olympics show us that no matter what obstacles we face, and we certainly do face a lot of them, we can overcome them with the help and support of those around us.

As I said, I am an idealist and I can only hope, as I always do, that once the flame is extinguished over Vancouver we at least take some of those lessons with us and make the effort to make the world as we wish it could be.