As a newsman and freelancer, Weiner is now best known for his award-winning work covering the 2008 U.S. Senate recount, about which he recently finished an account to be published shortly. He’s also owned the space around the political and economic aspects of sports – the focus of his 2000 book “Stadium Games.” He’s a fan, sure. Weiner is also a keen observer of sports as a system. He is not a cheerleader-cum-scribe. So what themes did he identify in advance of the Vancouver games?

 

Olympic sports, Olympic politics. “The Olympics,” Weiner notes, “have always represented something very different from pro sports. Olympic sports and politics are layered; they’re intertwined.” Jesse Owens’ winning of four gold medals in 1936 in the capital of Nazi Germany, the 1964 ban of South Africa due to growing international objections to apartheid, and the revered 1980 victory of the U.S. men’s hockey team against the Soviet Union (to advance to the gold medal round, where the U.S. beat the Finnish team) comprise a small sample of Olympic sports burning political fuel. Weiner saw the politics early: His first Olympics on the ground as a reporter, in Sarajevo, was the fourth games occurring under the cloud of boycott.

 

More than the events distinguish summer and winter games. The summer games draw about 10,000 athletes from 200 countries, while the winter games involve closer to 3,000 hailing from roughly 70 nations. Bigger countries dominate in the winter, thanks in part to access to costly infrastructure and equipment involved in events like bobsled, speed- and figure skating. The summer events are a stage where large and small nations compete for medals. 

 

Swifter, higher, stronger. Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt set three world records and won three gold medals in the 2008 games, each by substantial margins. Are the Olympics exciting because athletes continue to break records? Because each time the Olympic games return, the less able are our bodies to undertake the feats witnessed? Or because this is a venue where we are willing to accept the collision of political and cultural views? I’ll be looking for Olympic commentator Weiner to answer all of these questions when the games open this Friday.