A Win At The Whistle

The Rio Olympics, beset by financial and logistical problems, ended in success thanks in part to a brilliant performance by a homegrown hero.

- Alexander Wolff

There you go. It’s what we’ve muttered nine times now, over three Olympics, after each race Usain Bolt ran. And it’s what Bolt told the world in Rio de Janeiro, Ali-like, after winning his third gold medal of the 2016 Games, in the 4 × 100 relay, to make nine in his Olympic career: “There you go, I am the greatest.” He said it as if making a gift of his performance and an offering of himself.

The Rio Olympics weren’t the greatest, not by most measures. But the city made its own offering to the world by hosting the Games under extraordinary duress. With so many real problems, Rio hardly deserved fabrications sprung from the imagination of swimmer Ryan Lochte.

IOC president Thomas Bach has a knack for putting even the most disconcerting development in a positive light, and he described Brazil’s challenges as a welcome intrusion of the real world. “This was very good for everybody, to be close to reality, not to be in a bubble for 16 days, isolated from a country, from a society,” he said.

Mario Andrada, the endearingly frank spokesman for the organising committee, didn’t spin nearly as hard. “We overpromised and underdelivered,” he confessed. With generous comments, he showed those US swimmers more forgiveness than they probably deserved. Andrada modelled “keep calm and carry on” as well as any Londoner did four years ago.