BANG! And they're off...BANG! they're back, false start...an ongoing 2020 Olympic saga...

Fortnight: Double Bang! Signaling my own false start here, just a day premature, given the "2020 Olympics" are due to actually start in fifteen, not the fourteen days associated with a fortnight. False starts, we've all had our share, but in this case we've had more than our share of false as well as delayed starts. That is, while I am out from the starting blocks unfairly, which now feature the technology "ReacTime", detects an athletes attempt to get the edge on their competition, if you are an athlete or spectator waiting for the starter pistol, buzzer, strobe light, or any combination that might be used to signal it's OK to start running or swimming...at the originally scheduled 2020 Tokyo Olympics, you'd be waiting for 364 days, plus ??? hours and minutes...talk about tight calf muscles, hamstrings, lower back (or sore gluteus maximus, for those who have been doing the maximus sitting and waiting, we've all been there). So, whether I'm 'Johnny Come Home' or 'Johnny-Come-Lately' depends on your perspective, where and when you are sitting and waiting for this series of events that we have come to call the International Olympics, that normally come every four years, governed by the IOC, which signals where and when the summer and winter games will be held, which in turn allows the host country/cities as well as the thousands of athletes who have dreamed of this since youngsters to train their hearts out. And, of course, the spectators, many of whom have been the indefatigable supporters of the athletes, to start making travel arrangements and save for tickets to attend venues, both of which were challenging enough preCOVID, which have risen to almost an Olympic event themselves...

Starters, Stoppers: Perhaps the most underappreciated person on the field, on the pool deck, or situated wherever, depending on the venue. The person that instructs, cautions, preps, and finally and suddenly, signals "It's a go!" with whatever signaling device they control, after which the athletes (most, unless you're the last to get off the blocks) hope to not hear a second BANG! or a signal to return to the blocks. Which itself is a psychologist's 'field day'  -- observing, studying the athlete's faces and attempting to gain entry into their inner thoughts and attempts to regroup. As distant spectators, we have also been looking to other starters, such as the head of the IOC, the local organizers, as well as those representing the Japanese citizenry who continue to be, as a group, largely against holding the Olympics as currently scheduled (i.e., as of 7-8-21 7AM EST), the latter due to their own Olympian efforts to gain a foothold against CV-19, which they haven't yet gained a strong advantage...

Pay to Play/Watch, Not Child's Play: As the number of spectators at major venues have been curtailed "For the protection of both the athletes and the surrounding communities", the opening and closing ceremonies themselves have been altered to be held "behind closed doors" (but, of course, 'live streamed' for the rest of us around the globe), the actual final legs of the torch carrying relay, one of the oldest, revered, non-competitive events of the Olympics have been altered within the capital, going 'off road' ("Tokyo officials scrap the final legs of the torch relay on public roads"). But not before the 53-year-old masked markswoman, Kayoko Takahashi, got off a few squirts of H2O from her own starter pistol, an unsuccessful attempt to douse the torch held aloft by the privileged runner who, under other circumstances, may have welcomed such a cooling off. The woman, who was attempting to make the case on behalf of a legion of fellow citizens ("No Olympics; Stop the Olympics!"), had her squirt gun unceremoniously wrestled from her by security agents and she was eventually arrested on "Obstruction" charges (an Olympics within an Olympics...lots of action and verb tenses here). She and we were collectively cautioned, admonished that "This is not child's play". Oh yeah, why do they call it "The Games" then? Perhaps they will re-train Kayoko to be a starter down the road a bit, after the international attention has been taken off Tokyo and focused on Paris instead...

And they're...BANG! Finally, out of the blocks, running, swimming, doing all the things they have been training for who knows how long...for most of the collective 'they' this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience as, for the great majority, there is not (at least as of this post) a professional, paid-to-play equivalent, at least not sufficiently remunerated that the athletes can focus solely on training rather than hold down a second job. To them and and all of you who have been waiting patiently, trying your Olympic best to not jump out prematurely,  my own 'rerouting', of lyrics from a recent big hit by AJR ("Bang!", 2020):

"...I get up, I get down

and I'm jumping around...

been a hell of a ride...

I'm way too young to live here forever...

Let's go out with a bang...

(here we go)

Bang! Bang! Bang!"                                                                                                          

The foregoing lyrics reflecting the band's awareness of the inevitable transition from childhood to adulthood, which many of the 2020 athletes hope does not come about prior to these Games finally getting under way; many Japanese citizens hope otherwise. After all, the Olympics are mostly about time and place; where you finish is in part determined by your relative starting position...