CHICAGO — Actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson narrated an inspirational video for NBC last weekend that introduced Team USA during the opening ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
The premise of the video was that several Americans became great Olympic athletes after someone said “I dare you” to them as kids. Once they accepted the dare, it put into motion careers of greatness, of small-town kids overcoming the odds to prove themselves on the Olympic stage.
The music swells between clips of American athletes training and past Olympic moments accompanied by broadcasters’ calls (“Superhuman!”). It culminates with a scene of the U.S. men’s hockey team upsetting the Soviet Union at the Lake Placid Games in 1980, when Al Michaels delivered the legendary line: “Do you believe in miracles?”
It’s very well done and gets your red-white-and-blue blood flowing.
Then comes the kicker.
“Try not to watch,” the impeccably chiseled wrestler-turned-actor says to viewers, speaking directly to the camera. “Try not to be inspired. Try not to be proud. I dare you.”
Dare accepted, Rock.
I’ll try not to watch the Beijing Olympics, which should alleviate the pressure of having to be inspired by athletes because of our shared nationality. It’s early, but so far, so good. Other than watching the opening ceremony on mute while playing Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon,” I’ve seen only a few glimpses of competition in the first few days of events — a famous skier falling here, a famous figure skater twirling there.
But thanks to the new norm of nonstop video reviews by NBA and college basketball officials, I can always check in on the Olympics during breaks in hoops action without actually having to watch the event, keeping the dare alive.
Unfortunately, most of the time I turn to NBC there’s an ad featuring hundreds of people inexplicably skiing together down a mountainside without crashing into each other. That forces me back to the video review, which is still in progress.
I’m not anti-Olympics. I remember rooting for the U.S. hockey team in 1980 but no more so than rooting for French skier Jean-Claude Killy at the 1968 Olympics in Grenoble, France. The story was always the attraction, no matter the country. Inspiration has no boundaries. I’ve also spent a lifetime rooting for foreign-born athletes in many sporting events, from Killy to Björn Borg at Wimbledon in the ’70s to Hideki Matsuyama at the Masters last April.
So, sorry, Team USA. It’s not you, it’s me. Anyone talented enough and hard-working enough to make an Olympic team deserves our total respect and admiration. Kudos to all who are competing.
But I don’t follow their careers enough to have a real allegiance, and the NHL’s decision to pull its players lessened my interest in Olympic hockey, the one sport I probably would spend the most time watching.
Just when I thought it was safe to ignore the Olympics, Eileen Gu, the 18-year-old American competing for China, won a gold medal Tuesday in freeskiing big air, a new event. Having never heard of Gu before she won, I was unaware she was a model/freeskier/brand ambassador from California recruited by China for its Olympic team.
Her father is American, her mother is Chinese and she’s now an all-American girl representing a communist country with a repressive dictatorship.
Many foreign-born athletes are competing for China, which does not seem abnormal for any sport in this day and age. Former Chicago Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo played for Italy in the 2013 World Baseball Classic despite having never been to Italy. His grandfather was born there, so he was eligible.
The international transfer portal is a many-splendored thing.
According to reports, Gu dodged questions in her news conference about whether she still is a U.S. citizen. Back in 2019, when she decided to compete for China in the 2022 Olympics, Gu wrote on her Instagram: “I am proud of my heritage, and equally proud of my American upbringings. The opportunity to help inspire millions of young people where my mom was born, during the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help to promote the sport I love.”
No matter which country she represents, Gu’s simple message of competing for the sake of fun resonates. She said she planned to enjoy herself no matter the outcome of what was described as a “daring move” on her final jump.
“Even if I didn’t land it, I felt it would send a message out to the world and hopefully encourage more girls to break their own boundaries,” she said. “That was my biggest goal going into my last run. I reminded myself to have fun and enjoy the moment and that, no matter what, I was so grateful to even have this opportunity to even be here.”
Go, Gu. That’s the kind of American spirit we all can be proud of — even if China gets to claim her as its own. You’ve made me want to tune in to the Olympics.
The Rock wins again.
