​The 2020 Tokyo Olympics are officially underway and, while there’s rightful debate over its timing and efficacy, there is also no denying the Olympian’s individual brilliance, or the spirit of determination defining these elite athletes.

At its best, the Olympic Games provide an awe-inspiring display of physical performance and technique, of super-human speed and acrobatic agility and not only that - they also serve as a window of potential; to heal the political divides of time through this universal language of sport.
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The ancient games were a display of body and mind alike, with literary events and recitals peppering each event. Consider, for example, Pindar’s “The First Olympic Ode”, one of a select few poems to survive all these centuries past:

Chief is water of the elements; gold too, amid ennobling wealth, shines eminent, like fire, ​​
flaming in the night: but my soul, if thou desire to blazon combats, seek not, during day, ​​​
any brilliant star, wheeling through the desert air, more radiant than the sun: neither any ​​​
list, more excellent than Olympia's, (whence, to resound Saturn's son, proceeds the song
​​of fame, framed by the poets' skill) can we speak, coming to the wealthy, happy mansion ​​
of Hiero.

In fact Pindar, like so many poets of his day, was commissioned to write in celebration of one’s great victory. This particular poem commemorates Pherenikos, a winning racehorse owned by Hieron, ruler of Syracuse and a patron of the poet.

There is so much to unpack in Pindar’s poem; far beyond the call to praise an individual horse, it reflects the cultural dynamics of the day, and here we see the invaluable function of art to bear witness and catalogue these moments in time.

Indeed, literature itself provides a great, wide open space to pick apart the athletic psyche, and no where is this more evident than in Japanese novelist Haruki Murikami’s memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, whose lengthy exploration into the writer’s passion for long-distance running serves as a kind of meditation on life itself, and a fitting passage to honour this year’s host country:

For me, running is both exercise and a metaphor. Running day after day, piling up
the ​​​races, bit by bit I raise the bar, and by clearing each level I elevate myself. At least that’swhy I’ve put in the effort day after day: to raise my own level. I’m no great runner, by any ​​means. I’m at an ordinary – or perhaps more like mediocre – level. But that’s not
the point. ​​ The point is whether or not I improved over yesterday. In long-distance running the only ​​​opponent you have to beat is yourself, the way you used to be.

words: Sean Morrissey
photo: Unsplash Erik Zunder