Editorial: Olympics challenge us all to do better

Every year, the world has a chance to be better for a few days.

Right now, more than 10,000 athletes from 206 countries have gathered in France for the Olympic Games.

They will compete in 329 events over 32 sports. There are the classics such as running and cycling. There are team sports such as basketball and soccer. There are water sports such as swimming and diving. And there are new and different sports such as break dancing and skateboarding.

And every contest is an opportunity for peace.

That might seem strange. How can Pittsburgh native Michael Grady work for peace by rowing? How can Murrysville’s Spencer Lee do so through wrestling or Upper St. Clair alum Josh Matheny with the breaststroke? How will Greensburg’s Bridget Williams make the world better through pole vault?

It’s a demonstration of the power of possibility.

No one accidentally ends up at the Olympics. It is the culmination of a lifetime of effort. It is the work of years. It is early morning practices and doing just one more try when you feel like you have nothing left to give. It is sacrificing things you would like to do for a goal that has become your reason for getting up in the morning.

It is the fact that all Olympians, regardless of sport and regardless of how many people have the same goal, compete less with any person on any other team than with themselves.

That dedication and commitment is a lesson to the world. Wars rage while the Olympics go on, but the lesson of the games is there is always a better way than war. Politics grinds its gears in France right now, just the way it does in the United Kingdom and here in the United States. The Olympics says there is a better way than the mutinous obstinacy of partisanship.

And after each of those 329 events, the podiums will be filled with competitors who stand beside one another in shows of sportsmanship. They will do their best, and, when the scores are tallied, despite broken hearts and sometimes broken bodies, they will stand up and smile. The winners will wave proudly. The others — not losers because no one who has achieved an invitation to the Olympics is a loser — resolve to more.

They resolve to do better.

In the conflicts between nations, we must all resolve to do better. When we resort to war, it is an admission that we have failed at diplomacy. No one’s child — whether a soldier or a hostage like those in Gaza or a prisoner like Oakmont’s Marc Fogel in Russia — should die because of a failure of diplomacy.

In the conflicts at home, we need to learn the same lesson. The rigid lines that have developed between Democrats and Republicans, both elected and just neighbors, are all a failure to put in the work to understand each other. It is a failure to listen and a failure to connect honestly.

The members of Team USA represent the nation to the world. They have worked to do so for years. They do so for their whole country. It is not about party. It is pride.

Those Olympians model more than just a good jump shot or the perfect dive. They display perseverance and improvement and a challenge to all of us, every day, to do better.