Today's discussion highlighted the development of the Olympics from ancient culture to modern. The biggest overall difference seemed to center on the focus of each competition: the individual versus the team.
Team sports dominate the modern arena. Football, baseball, soccer, hockey - all team oriented. Even some modern olympic sports have incorporated team elements. The one I am most familiar with is fencing. Olympic fencing, a typically individual-oriented sport, also has a team style competition. While the team isn't working together like soccer or hockey players do, points are cumulative rather than based on paired bouts, and so there is a clear step towards cheering for the national group rather than individual participants. Each nation, regardless of the sport, also tallies how many medals they win overall.
On the one hand, in a globalized world, I suppose it would be difficult to choose only one representative for a nation in each sport. There is a kind of stigma against a single person bearing the weight of a nation's presence, despite the ways political representation works on a practical level. On the other hand, ancient societies did not have the same kind of global awareness or national unity that we do today. The glory of the individual was still acceptable. Perhaps I am reaching a bit, but it seems that the hero culture of ancient times permitted greater individual glory than it does in a modern setting.
