Lausanne: The Olympic Museum

The Olympic Museum is the kind of place that celebrates itself. There is a fine line here. When the Olympics manages to be about the athletics, then the so-called "Olympic Movement" is everything it claims to be: a positive celebration of humanity. However, when it aspires to be a positive celebration of humanity, it can end up being a silly charade. The museum treads both sides of the line.

It was the Nazis who dreamt up the idea of starting a relay with a torch lit on Mount Olympus. Of course, there's nothing wrong with invoking the historical precedents of the Games, but since the Nazis brazenly exploited the Games, their idea was more about them, not the Greeks.

It seems the Chinese sought to inflate their own Games by planning and staging the longest relay ever: world-wide, far-flung and even sky-high up Mount Everest. Since no one counted on the March uprising in Tibet and the fact that many non-Chinese would be upset with China's handling of it, the relay has been plagued by protests. They crossed that fine line, taking something simple and making it grandiose, and they are paying the price. The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray....

The relay will and should survive......but for God's sake, keep it elegant, simple, and small.

Near closing time, I caught a 3-D film that showed highlights of the Sydney Games in 2000. It featured the full running of the women's 100 m final and the medal ceremony, complete with the angelic-looking Marion Jones tearing up throughout the national anthem. Since she owned up this year to taking steroids, it's difficult to watch this without feeling that the Games has become a sorry spectacle. Why are they still showing this clip at the Olympic Museum?

It was also interesting to see the pictures of all the Committee members. I couldn't help scanning this gallery of non-athletic looking people from small countries with bloated, despotic faces and wondering.....which ones are selling their votes for favors?

It's nice to see fairy tale stuff unfold at every games, but since the Olympics is just a reflection of humanity itself, the real fun is watching the whole shooting match....corruption, grace, pomp, courage, cheating, beauty and all.