Maybe everyone went to the Tokyo Olympics with a secret fear that they weren't adequately prepared. I'm sure I was. Is the time difference 13 hours affecting my performance? How would I be able to handle long hours of sitting in front a computer screen while also enjoying my beer and ice-cream?My months of indoor training Ted Lasso and The Last Dance, Sunderland Til It Is Die, paid off. These past two weeks have brought me many wonderful, unexpected and delightful rewards. Britain's Charlotte Worthington landed a 360-degree backflip to win the women's freestyle BMX. Carissa Moore from Hawaii won the first ever gold medal in women's surfing. These high-jumpers are exuberant. Katie Ledecky. Allyson Felix.Every other organism on Earth is subject to competition. This tension has led to amazing morphological adaptations over the course of evolution. Velvet worms. Ultraviolet flying squirrels. Electroactive bacteria. The anglerfish and their boyfriends.This type of competition might have stopped being relevant for humans. (Of course this is only possible for species with disproportionally large cerebral cortexes. The Olympics was created to showcase human drive in its purest form and most niche. Canoe slalom. Hammer throw. Trampoline gymnastics. Table tennis. Meta-competition is also possible: there are new, less popular sports (croquet anyone?). disappearing.
