Olympics continue to inspire, warts and all

With the lowering of another Olympic flag and the extinguishing of another Olympic flame, the world is again left asking the perennial question about this wonderful but deeply flawed sporting extravaganza. Is it all worthwhile?

Given the failure of the Olympic movement to shake off the corruption, cheating and doping that has infected it for decades, given the widely held perception that the International Olympic Committee is a cosy millionaire’s club that favours political expediency over ethics, it’s not surprising millions of people who aren’t diehard fans have tuned out.

And when you consider South Korea spent a cool $13 billion to entertain the world for two weeks in Pyeonchang, it’s only reasonable to ask if the money couldn’t have been put to better use — stopping a famine, for instance.

It doesn’t take a cynic to detect tarnish on those Olympic rings, especially after two “Olympic Athletes from Russia” were disqualified for using drugs.

But while this month’s Winter Games were never problem-free, they proved the movement’s ideals of promoting pure, athletic excellence along with global harmony are alive.

Indeed, the sudden thaw in the dangerously frozen relationship between North and South Korea could chart a new path to peace.

Canadians who witnessed their athletes winning the most medals in this country’s Olympic history will readily appreciate what was accomplished through pride, passion, sweat and grit.

Above all, the transcendent performance that captured a gold medal for Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir in the ice dance deserves its own chapter in the annals of Canadian sports.

True sports lovers, however, know the real worth of the Olympics cannot be measured by which countries take home the biggest hauls of medal hardware.

They’ll treasure the triumphs achieved by athletes from every nation. The Czech Republic’s Ester Ledecka, for instance, won fame as the first woman to win gold medals in two Winter sports — skiing and snowboarding. Remarkable.

As heartening as all this is, the greatest victory at these Games came in the rapprochement between the two Koreas.

The war fought between these two countries more than six decades ago has never officially ended.

In recent months, North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and the intercontinental ballistic missiles to deliver them has pushed East Asia closer to the brink of war.

But these Olympics could prove a game-changer away from the arenas and ski slopes.

Here, the North and South competed as one Korean team. Here, their leaders sat together, cheering their athletes on.

And, for a few days at least, athletes normally separated by ideology and a militarized border, walked in solidarity.

The change may be lasting.

As the Games ended, North Korea expressed a willingness for new peace negotiations with the South and the United States.

You needn’t be naïve to hope good can come from this.

And you needn’t close your eyes to what’s wrong with the Olympics to glimpse the beauty of the human family playing, in peace, together.

Yes, it is worthwhile.

They proved the movement’s ideals of promoting pure, athletic excellence along with global harmony are alive.