Every eye is on Rio.
The opening ceremony of the 31st Olympiad tomorrow will, no doubt, be infused with true South American passion, flair and beauty.
Rio de Janeiro has always been a tourist mecca with her famous beaches and breathtaking views of Corcovado Mountain, with its statue of Christ the Redeemer standing arms outstretched, gazing over the city.
For Rio, the journey to host the Games has been a long and expensive one, from the initial bid in 2007 to the actual cost of an estimated $US14.4billion ($NZ20billion).
Yet with nearly half a million tourists expecting to watch the excitement of 42 Olympic sports, the gamble may yet pay off.
It is estimated 10,500 athletes will compete.
Their road to Rio will have been nearly as long and tortuous as the host city’s.
Former New Zealand Olympian, Barbara Kendall, says athletes typically train for about eight years before making it to the Olympics in search of the elusive gold medal. It is not all glamour and glory for these athletes.
There is a lot of blood, sweat, and tears along the way for a shot at glory, and that moment will be over ever so quickly.
What then?
What happens after you hang up your athletic spikes, rowing oars, boxing gloves or tennis racquet?
Louise Ellis says: "Professional athletes are not made of steel, and are at their most vulnerable to depression when they retire."
Dame Kelly Holmes, a British double Olympian, who battled self-harm and depression agrees: "After retiring I was like any other athlete. You get to a point where you are lost, you lose your identity, you don’t really know who you are any more, what you are doing."
Our own John Walker, who suffers from Parkinson’s, declares Parkinson’s to be "an awful disease, I can tell you. I would give up my medals and all the world records for my health".
These comments tells us that there is more to life than being on the highest step of the Olympic podium.
What is left when the thrill of competition, the fixation of pushing oneself to the limit and the glory of the spotlight, fades?
For us spectators, inspired by world-class competition, it is important to remember there is more to Rio than our screens show.
For instance, the favela (slums) controlled by drug lords and sex-trafficking pimps all compounded by extreme poverty.
Rio de Janeiro is a mixture of paradise, passion, pay-offs and poverty.
Beyond Rio, there is a question that demands an answer: What do you gain if you win a gold medal, but lose your soul?
Gold medallist Eric Liddell, of Chariots of Fire fame, said: "It has been a wonderful experience to compete in the Olympic Games and to bring home a gold medal. But since I have been a young lad, I have had my eyes on a different prize. You see, each one of us is in a greater race than any I have run in Paris, and this race ends when God gives out the medals."
In the message of Christianity, these medals are not earned or deserved but are given by God’s sheer grace.
They are for those that receive the real Christ with his arms wide open and hands nailed open ... not just for Rio, but for the whole world.
He offers something far greater than a gold medal and five seconds in the limelight.
He gives something that will never perish, spoil or fade.
This offer is to everyone, no matter whether we win or lose.
It is offered to those who cheat with drugs and those who are clean; for sportspeople and spectators; for those in the stadiums and those in the slums.
It is the offer of life — a new dimension to life; an eternal kind of life.
As Eric Liddell says: "Many of us are missing something in life because we are after the second best."
- Mark Smith is Pastor of Grace Church, Dunedin.
