People said they wouldnt watch Now they cant look away

There is something very different about this year’s Olympic Games. I don’t just mean the bleeding obvious of no crowds, masked athletes and a menacing pandemic.

Rather, I mean the delayed Tokyo event seems to be capturing an even larger and more impassioned audience than usual.

Ariarne Titmus celebrates after her 400-metre freestyle final win.Credit:Getty Images

I am by no means your typical sports fan, and yet I’m actually watching the Games. A lot. Even weirder, my heart rate has been spiking and my face contorting in ways I usually associate with the tearful joy I feel watching Pixar films.

Of course, the Olympics always incite widespread enthusiasm, but this year there is a unique and palpable public mood: many people, who normally would not be watching, are now closely following the daily schedule and gripped by the action, while sports lovers are even more wrapped up in the competition.

Bolstered by a friendly time difference and lockdowns, the Tokyo Olympics, airing on Seven, are already outperforming the 2016 Rio Games on free-to-air, and the network say it’s breaking streaming records.

Gold medals for weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz and skateboarder Nishiya Momiji.Credit:Getty Images

Our social media feeds and message threads have been alight with Olympic emotion, from Ariarne Titmus’ sensational win in the pool against Katie Ledecky (and her coach’s ensuing wild celebration), to the 13-year-old Japanese skateboarder, Nishiya Momiji, who became the youngest individual to win gold, and weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz who burst into tears after she seized the Philippines’ first ever gold medal.

Kirsty Trimper, a Melbourne-based fashion retail manager, is a sports fan who feels like she has “never needed the Olympics more”, allowing her to immerse herself in events and forget about lockdown for a while.

“A key difference this year for me is the feeling of solidarity I have with the competitors â€" they are separated from family and friends while millions of us at home are also separated from family and friends. Knowing how challenging that is naturally evokes a more emotional response,” Trimper says.

The 30-year-old says she has been “crying tears of joy” over the achievements of Australian athletes. “I know of people who said they wouldn’t be watching the Olympics, but tuned in over the weekend â€" they couldn’t help themselves and it’s better than watching the news.”

Dr Darren Saunders, a Sydney-based biomedical scientist, says it isn’t unusual for him to be moved by incredible Olympic performances, but he has noticed emotions are heightened this year and there is a lot more online chatter.

Saunders plays and coaches hockey, while his teenage daughters are competitive swimmers, so watching Australia succeed in those two sports has been particularly stirring.

“When we’re all so isolated, it’s a point of connection,” Saunders says, adding that the positive energy of the Olympics feels accentuated when we’ve been stewing in pandemic gloom.

Saunders also believes the Games are providing a renewed sense of national unity. “There’s a lot of division between the states with COVID-19, and this is a good reminder that we are one country.”

Ratio National’s Drive host Patricia Karvelas, from Melbourne, tweeted that she shared happy tears with her primary school-aged daughters following Titmus’ win. Her girls, Karvelas says, are big swimmers who have been desperate to get back into the pool.

“Here we were, in our fifth lockdown, learning from home again, watching an Australian champion,” Karvelas says.

“Titmus provided our country, struggling with the reality that this virus knows no end, with a moment of magic and hope.

“I think the pandemic has been so challenging that those moments of success and victory trigger even stronger responses from us than usual.”

When I called Monash University professor of psychiatry Jayashri Kulkarni to make sense of this, she chuckled at the “interesting” timing: “I’ve just come from a conversation [between colleagues] that was very heated about the Olympics, and I was struck by what’s going on,” Kulkarni says. “The number of hours of sport people watched on the weekend, who normally would not, watching events they know nothing about ... I think it was a welcome relief.”

Kulkarni, too, has been soaking up the atmosphere of the Games. “I found myself dragged into the road bike racing and under no circumstances am I a cyclist,” she says. “Many people who would not call themselves sportingly-minded appear to be taking on the emotionality of what is happening.”

Kulkarni explains that after 18 months living in a pandemic, our reserves are running thin, so our emotions are closer to the surface. It’s why you might find yourself getting unexpectedly tearful watching this year’s Olympics.

She says the Tokyo Games are providing distraction, and a safe and healthy way to displace coronavirus-related emotion â€" be it anger, anxiety, boredom or hopelessness.

“These Olympics are imbued with a number of symbolic representations that are not actually to do with the sports themselves,” she says.

Whether it’s providing us with hope from seeing the world do normal things; creating a national bond to cheer on Team Australia; bringing us a sense of success after suffering loss after loss; seeing the flags of different nations come together; even seeing the sights of Tokyo while we’re locked in Australia.

“They’re two worldwide events, and the Olympics are almost a ballast to the awfulness of the pandemic. Here’s something that’s positive and global ... Like a yin and yang situation.”

It’s little wonder so many of us are uncharacteristically welling up. Rightly or wrongly, the Games are happening in spite of everything we’ve been through. And you don’t need to be a sports fanatic to see the beauty in that.

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Sophie is Deputy Lifestyle Editor for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.

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