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Thank the complainers for our exuberant Games

March 7th, 2010 · 38 Comments

Well, now that we’ve had a chance to decompress, to re-accustom ourselves to bad bus service, heavy traffic, empty sidewalks, and winter rain, I thought this was a time to raise a glass of champagne to all those people who complained about how bad the Games were going to be. They predicted that thousands of people would be evicted, that the Games would be dominated by elites partying at exclusive events unavailable to the rest of us, that we’d be living in a militarized zone where free speech was under threat, that the transportation plans would prove to be a disaster, and that generally the whole 17 days would be a downer.

Thanks to them, we went into the Games with incredibly low expectations. And I think it’s what contributed to the emotional highs that people felt. They weren’t expected and so they had much more impact than if we had all been drumming our fingers for the past four years waiting impatiently for the greatest party of our lives.

(And also, thanks to them and their kicking up of such a fuss, there was hyper-vigilance about all of the above.)

If only they had predicted what a downer it would be afterwards.

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