“Do you believe in miracles? Yes!” Al Michaels shouts as Team USA’s 1980 Winter Olympics men’s hockey team beats the Soviet Union in an unbelievable upset.
The win is particularly powerful given the Cold War tensions steadily simmering between the United States and the Soviet Union, combined with the fact that no one expected the United States to pull out a win.
This patriotic moment is memorialized in Netflix’s recent documentary Miracle: The Boys of ’80, which I watched with my parents on a quick trip home a couple of weeks ago.
As I saw the memory gloss over my parents’ faces, I couldn’t help but notice that I had yet to experience that level of excitement about the Olympics in my lifetime, and how disappointed that realization made me.
These feelings made me contemplate the role of the Olympics in the modern age, and led me to a question: why aren’t the Olympics as significant as they used to be?
When I think of the past Olympic Games, all I can remember is the Australian breakdancer’s infamous performance or Stephen Nedoroscik’s Clark Kent-esque pommel horse routine from the 2024 Paris Olympics. While these instances certainly created some iconic pop culture moments, the Olympics used to be so much more.
The Olympics, as we know them today, were an ancient Greek tradition designed to honor Zeus, the king of Greek gods and goddesses. The tradition was revived in 1896 to encourage global unity and connection. Over the last 130 years, the Olympics have often proved to be a powerful tool in international relations and politics.
The 1936 Summer Olympics, hosted in Berlin, Germany, saw a powerful win for Team USA as the men’s eight rowing team, comprised of working-class students from the University of Washington, beat the German men’s eight by one second. This win was particularly significant, considering World War II would begin a mere three years later.
At the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics in South Korea, the governments of North and South Korea struck a surprising diplomatic deal that had athletes from both countries marching under a unified flag during the opening ceremonies and participating in a joint women’s hockey team.
Though the two countries returned to separate teams after these Olympics, the moment was significant for its blatant show of diplomatic unity.
While the Olympics have been and still can be a powerful vessel for political change and commentary, the communal and unifying experience of the Olympics has declined significantly over the last couple of decades.
Most people’s relationship with the Olympics has boiled down to viral clips of the most impressive, comedic, or upsetting moments that appear on a social media feed… and most people scroll by without a second thought.
If you have the figure skating obsession that I do, then you probably have also seen clips of Team USA’s Ilia Malinin’s unbelievable backflip on ice during this year’s Winter Olympics hosted in Milano Cortina. When I first saw this clip on my feed, it reminded me that the Olympics had started and led me to search for where I could watch the events.
This was when I discovered that the only promoted viewing option for the Olympics is NBC and its streaming service, Peacock, which is $10.99 per month. The unbelievable inaccessibility of the events makes it difficult for significant portions of the population to even keep up with the Olympics, let alone become invested in them.
The irony here shouldn’t be lost that the entire point of the Olympics is to promote domestic and international unity, and we’ve reached a point where most of the population can’t find it, much less watch it.
The advent of social media and the rising inaccessibility of viewing options due to the increase in streaming services have complicated the communal viewing experience of the Olympics detrimentally.
Having said that, there are still ways to get involved with the Olympics. If you still have cable or an antenna, NBC’s channels are streaming live coverage of the Olympics until Feb. 22. Peacock has a cheaper $5.99 a month for students with proof of a valid student ID.
I’ve enjoyed most of the 2026 Winter Olympics through clips posted on YouTube, and though they aren’t live, the viewing experience is still very enjoyable! You can also find local restaurants and bars that will have the Olympics on TV! Getting a group of friends to go to a new spot near campus and experience the Olympics together can be a fun way to enjoy.
It’s not that the Olympics themselves have become less impressive, less important, or less unifying, but they’ve become so difficult to access that it’s easier for people to make them an afterthought instead of the outstanding showcase of talent and patriotism that they should be.
While the Olympics are less of a cultural moment than they used to be, their unifying nature has grown more important as our world has become more complicated than ever before.
Though it may take more effort than it should, I encourage everyone to watch at least one event from this year’s Winter Olympics, if not for yourself, for the athletes who have worked their entire lives for the opportunity to represent their country.
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