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Triumph Of Spirit
There's a reason we come, despite the nonsense. There's a reason we come to the Olympics still, every two years now, despite the fact that sometimes you get William Shatner or the odd, massive inflatable moose. What with all the overdone stagecraft and security hassles, the butt-covering parsing of words or the smugness of IOC officials who speak of an "Olympic movement" that never moves quite far enough when it comes to abuses committed under those oh-so-hallowed rings, it's easy to forget.

But the reason rises most clearly, every time, at the end.

It rises during the closing ceremony, at the moment when stagecraft fades and the simplest of human acts begins. The athletes walk in.

That's it: They walk into some stadium, as they did again Sunday evening at Vancouver's B.C. Place to end the 2010 Winter Games, and the clearest picture of what the Olympics means emerges. Young people who have spent the months serving as civic heroes, national symbols, stand-ins for millions, become young again. Unlike the opening ceremony tradition of marching in national delegations in strict order, under a flag, at the closing men and women who have sweated against each other for weeks, sometimes years, walk out in an easy jumble, and soon mix, stand and dance until all national colors and flags become irrelevant.

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