“It’s magic when the world comes together.” Thank you, Coca Cola for saying in seven words what I feel about the Olympics. I love the games — summer and winter. For Paris Summer 2024, I was, as for every games, transformed from woman who cannot sit still to certified couch potato. And since the torch was passed to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on August 11, I am sad. Really. Like first-day back to work after vacation or day after Christmas sad.

My television has been on, volume low, most of every day since July 26. My dinner has been thrown together during the 6:30 p.m. news break between the daytime competitions and Primetime in Paris coverage. (I did squeeze in ​“Jeopardy” at 7:00 p.m., unless Olympic coverage started before 8:00 p.m.) Tray on my lap, I have eaten dinner in front of the television. 

I have been awed by the feats of athletic prowess, power and precision. I have been humbled by how swifter, higher, stronger women and men can go. (Paris 2024 was the first gender equal games. Bravo!) The sportsmanship captivated me.

And at least once a night, the athletes’ stories, what they have overcome, how they have trained, all the people who have supported them and the unity and exuberance of the human spirit the Olympics symbolizes have reduced me to tears. I heard a story about a field hockey team from a wealthy country after defeating their underfunded competitors buying them the cleats they needed to compete successfully. The newly cleated team won their next game, and I choked up. Flavor Fav sponsored the U.S. Women’s Water Polo team after learning some of the athletes work two or three jobs to train and compete, and suddenly I was one of his biggest fans — same with Snoop Dogg. Stephen Nedoroscik, after pommel horsing his way to a U.S. men’s team gymnastics bronze, was crowned Clark Kent and took bronze again in the individual competition. North Korea snapped a selfie with South Korea. Multi-millionaire athletes Scottie Scheffler and Novak Djokovic cried after winning the gold in golf and tennis respectively, and athlete after athlete spoke of their pride in representing their country. 

I spent hours in a happier place — a place where greatness recognized and respected greatness and competitors from over 200 nations lived peacefully in one village. For sixteen days, the Paris Olympics took me away from the bleating of the real world, the fires, the flooding, the fighting and the babbling of a felon unfit to run for any office. Call me a Pollyanna, but I wish the world was more like the Olympics, and we might all live in peace.