OLYMPICS

Once every four years, countries from all over the world travel to one country to compete in sports to find out which  is the best of them all. This summer, the Olympic games were held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

From the moment Brazil was chosen to host the Summer Olympics in 2016, many controversies stirred up about where the games would be held. According to the article, “Brazil the Murder Capital of the World” by Forbes Magazine,Brazil is still a developing country, according to Forbes stated in an article titled “Brazil the Murder Capital of the World.”  Many protests by Brazilian citizens were held to try and  prevent the construction of the Olympic Stadium.  they demanded the government to use the money to help the country develop instead.

Another major concern of the Rio Olympics was the Zika virus. The outbreak of this virus caused concerns for many visitors and athletes. As many as sixteen Olympic athletes declined to participate in this year’s Olympic games, including Jordan Spieth, the former number one ranked golf player.

While the Olympic games were still continuing their events, Ryan Lochte became the center of attention for many news channels. Properly named “Lochtegate,” this controversy involved the American Olympic swimmers Ryan Lochte, Jimmy Feigen, Gunnar Bentz, and Jack Conger. On August 14, Lochte and Feigen claimed that Rio policemen robbed their other two teammates at gunpoint. The Rio Police took this claim very seriously, and investigated the incident. After many days of searching and listening to the testimonies of the swimmers, they concluded that the story wasn’t true. Lochte had been charged for falsely reporting a crime and risked up to six months in jail time. Luckily, Lochte was able to just pay a fine instead.

Despite such issues that revolved around Brazil hosting the Olympics,  many events were still able to draw huge crowds to Rio to see their country’s athletes take home a gold medal. Due to the time zone, many events took place during the middle of the night or early in the afternoon, but the American people were still motivated to stay up all night just to watch one event and root for their country. “I remember when I stayed up till 3:00 AM just to watch South Korea play a game of football,” said Daniel Kim, “I was surprised to see Korea defeat Mexico in a game before, so I stayed up hoping that Korea would be able to qualify to the next round.”

Not only were the Olympics special for the viewers, but  many athletes also broke  records. For example, Michael Phelps became the athlete with the most gold medals,  he was able to achieve 23 gold medals over four  Summer Olympic events. Usain Bolt, a Jamaican track racer, was able to break the records he previously had – running a 4×100 meter race in just 37.27 seconds. Carmelo Anthony, the 32 year-old All-Star basketball player, had now won his third gold medal. He also abruptly stated right after the final game of basketball that this was his last time he would show up to the Olympics. “I know this is the end,” stated Carmelo “This is it for me.”

After seeing many Summer Olympics, the one at Rio seemed to have had the most controversies. However, the Olympics still seem to be able to unify the citizens of their nation in which countries test their skills to show who is the best. The Olympic games have been a long-held tradition where countries show  their talents and pride of the events they are skilled at. The Olympic games’ ability to bond a nation’s citizens together is amazing, and hopefully this magic can be seen in next year’s Olympic games: the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics.