Can the Olympics Help Us Understand Each Other?

Greetings from the Paris Olympics. Wish you were here.

Here sport is about more than sport. There is spirited comradeship overflowing the sidewalks and boulevards. In the words of the modern Olympic visionary Pierre de Coubertin in 1894, sport is about building a better and more peaceful world.

For such a world, I initiated in 1993 the United Nations revival of the ancient Olympic Truce for our modern era. During these Games, please follow me as I report on the real-time effects among countries of the Olympic Truce during Paris 2024. I call this “Geolympics.”

After Friday’s Opening Ceremony, my first postcard I sent read “The 2024 Olympics: Come Rain or Seine.”

A rainy river parade precipitated the 15 days of sporting fervor now underway in Paris. Whether on the splashy Seine or on its rain-soaked banks, all of us at Friday’s Olympic Opening Ceremony experienced a cultural baptism.

It was a French-drenched showcase in equal measure sacred and profane. But of course.

Confident of its third hosting of the Games since 1900, the City of Love is exposing more of its ventricles than usual to us non-French.

For the duration I plan to explore all chambers and blood flows — both red and blue. And the white light through the mist is the Olympic flame illuminating this wonderous place.

Its host cauldron is fueled by the Olympic Ideals. They are at play in landmark parks and stadiums.

Parental Warning: The Olympics are not about sport.

They are about educating the youth of the world through sport — and culture.

And how do the Olympics educate? The lesson plan interlinks the Olympic rings with their ideals: excellence, respect, and friendship.

It convenes youth to compete together, live together and thereafter cooperate together. No wonder that the word “together” was recently added to the Olympic motto “Faster, Higher, Stronger, Together.”

Yes, the power of participation together precedes the power of gold.

For 95% of countries rarely on the podium, the national medal counts are neither the draw nor the success metric. Actually, only a few, large countries relish the medal-eating contest.

Instead, the nonwinning countries, as do the non-French, come to Paris for something more — to see and to be seen.

People-to-people interactions help us understand each other better. This makes it more possible to live side-by-side rather than in spite or disdain.

So, through culture, as well as sport, Olympic education is a hands-on activity. Its ideals exist at the service of humanity, as do the Games themselves, the largest celebrations on earth.

The Opening Ceremony was a cultural event. Next let us follow not only the sports, but the real-time cultural impacts of the Olympic Truce during the Paris Games.