Finding common ground at Team USA
This week the Olympics open in Paris. As a two-time Olympic rower, I walked in the Parade of Nations and stood with Team USA while Muhammed Ali held the Olympic flame over his head. I wish everyone could experience that sense of American pride.
Over the next two weeks, we will see athletes demonstrate the heights of human performance.
During this Olympic moment, let’s consider who we are as a nation and what heights we can reach.
Olympic selection in rowing teaches that anyone can make a boat go slow by working without regard for their teammates. Anyone can be on Team Me. What requires a champion’s heart is to make the Team We: making the boat faster and better because you joined it. At the starting line of the Olympic final, I looked up and saw “USA” over the race lane, and I knew I was representing not just myself but the values we share as Americans — hard work, personal sacrifice, teamwork, and faith — values I learned working and growing up on my family’s ranch in eastern Montana.
The highest and best of our political values can be found in our democracy, the sanctity of the vote of we the people, and the peaceful transfer of power, based on the people’s will.
In these days of Team Me, we hear false calls for unity that mean “agree with me” (or worse, worship me). Requiring others to minimize the value of debate, dissent, argument, and diversity is to abandon the core of democracy. American democracy, like the Olympics, searches for excellence through respectful competition governed by agreed upon rules. Our nation is based on respecting and playing by and under the rule of law. No person, not even the government, is above this principle. This guardrail protects against authoritarian overreach and ensures competition that improves our lives rather than divides us. This is a moment to expand, not contract, our democracy.
In 1908, the bishop of Pennsylvania, Ethelbert Talbot, wrote what became the Olympic creed: “The important thing in life is not the triumph, but the fight; the essential thing is not to have won, but to have fought well.” We can improve and unite through competition in a healthy manner.
Beating an opponent takes place best with fair and honest debate and certainly without violence. The Olympic motto is: “Faster, Higher, Stronger — Together.” That last word, together, was added in the 2021 Olympics reflecting the need for greater solidarity in today’s world.
Strengthening democracy, expanding inclusivity and the rule of law is how we get stronger together in America.
That spirit of unity is exemplified in the strides women have made in the Olympic Games. In 1972, less than 15% of the athletes were women. This year in Paris we will see near gender parity. Women athletes have become excellent role models for young women in America and the world over. Inclusivity has strengthened the Olympics just as it strengthens our nation.
As we send off Team USA, let’s commit to Team USA at home. This does not mean ignoring our differences. It means honoring them through fair competition with agreed-upon rules, in which we accept the outcome, win or lose.
Let’s celebrate the American greatness that comes from facing our differences openly, acknowledging our shortcomings, and improving. Our greatness is not in demanding fealty to Team Me but in embracing that we are a diverse, vibrant nation, impressive in our ability to renew and rejuvenate ourselves, and not so weak that we cannot compete fairly. We are, in fact, faster, higher, and stronger together. When we all participate, our nation is at its best.
America will remain a shining beacon on a hill if we find the common ground of Team USA.
Monica Tranel is a world champion rower and two-time Olympian. She is the Democratic candidate for Montana’s western district U.S. House seat. She lives in Missoula.