An American in Lima

Peru athletes at Beijing 2008 Opening Ceremonies

I’ve always enjoyed watching the Olympics on TV, and even though I favor the Winter Games, I keep up with the summer competitions in gymnastics, swimming and running. As a kid, I chewed my fingernails off watching Mark Spitz splash his way to seven gold medals, and over the years I’ve cheered on elite-level gymnasts like Nadia Comaneci, Mary Lou Retton, Josef Stalder, and Kurt Thomas.

Like most American viewers, my heart lay with the U.S. athletes. A primal patriotic urge rose in me during Olympic seasons. Despite my long-held belief that we’re all citizens of the same earth, not individual nation states, I’d find myself not only rooting for the U.S. athletes, but secretly feeling annoyed when other teams won the gold, as though these victories somehow weren’t ”right.” (Talk about being a child of Empire!)

In some obscure way, that American sense of entitlement — which I detest — had wormed its way into my young psyche, to lie there, dormant, until the Olympic torch was relit every four years.

Watching the Olympic Games in the U.S. was an exercise in counting the number of Golds, not in wondering if we’d get any.

Now that I live in Peru and the 2008 Beijing Games are upon us, I’m having a very different Olympic experience.

Welcome to the land of the “ifs,” the experience common to most small countries when they send their delegations off to the Olympic extravagenza. As an American, though, I can’t quite stifle my super-sized expectations for my adopted country’s athletes.

Peru’s delegation for the 2008 Beijing games numbers thirteen athletes. (See the article in Living in Peru.) There are no teams competing, just individual atheletes in scattered sports: badminton, swimming, fencing, sailing, wrestling, shooting, weightlifting, running, and Tae Kwon Do.

None of the athletes is a sure bet for a medal, but still, I had expected Peruvians to exhibit more Olympic boosterism. After all, this is a country of intense patriotic spirit, with monthlong Independence Day celebrations and year-round campaigns extolling the superiority of all-things Peruvian (pisco, ceviche).

If Peruvians could get it up for The Year of the Potato, surely, I figured, they’d rouse themself to a flag-waving frenzy for their thirteen Olympians?

Sadly, I haven’t seen anything approaching that spirit. Pride here is muffled, as if to say, We Peruvians know better than to expect too much.  It’s not like the United States, where Olympic atheletes star in elaborate commercials and stores like Target and Wal-Mart sell racks of Olympic merchandise, confident that U.S. athletes will be victorious.

Not even the media in Peru shows much excitement. In fact, one Peruvian commentator I saw on ATV cable channel last night was downright pessimistic.

He is part of a team of Peruvian television journalists sent to Beijing to cover the Games. (Sorry, I didn’t jot down his name.) In a discussion with his fellow journalists, the ATV commentator announced, “Apart from Sixto Barrera [wrestler], Peru doesn’t have a chance of winning a medal.”

It was a matter of money, he said.  Peruvian Olympic atheletes don’t receive enough funding to help them train and compete at an international level. The other commenters nodded glumly.

El Fotografo and I watched in shock. Such a bald statement of hopelessness sends a dreadful message to the Peruvian athletes and to the thousands of viewers tuning in to the Games. At least wish the athletes good luck, I thought; don’t curse them before their competitions begin.  Send in a few cheerleaders: Go, Peru, go!

The ATV commentators may be correct in identifying lack of funding as a weakness in Peru’s hopes for a medal, but that analysis should wait until after Games.

For now, I’ll bring my American-style Olympic spirit to cheer on The Peru Thirteen. I don’t know much about their individual chances for a medal, but I hope they give it all they’ve got.

“If” they win medals, fine. What counts is they compete at their best.

Let them show the world that little Peru deserves its place on the starting line, along with the big boys.

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