What is your earliest Olympic Games memory? And what about the top 2016 Rio moments?
Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games were the first ones I actively watched and remembered. A nine-year old from a small town in the Balkans followed excitedly over a small screen TV the gymnastics teams from geopolitical giants such as the US, Russia and China. There was also a lot of cheering for the basketball, archery and volleyball envoys of my home country. Fast forward 20 years and here I am, creating and reading the Olympic games content with my tribe of Millennials and Baby Boomers on Facebook and Twitter news feed while some of friends are reporting from Rio as spectators or volunteers in the organizing team, which I was at London 2012, and one among us, the fellow friend One Young World Ambassador, Kirani James from Grenada even won the Olympic Games silver medal in the men's 400m race several days ago.
There are several reasons why following achievements at Olympic Games have been one of my main interests: I was brought up in the region where sport plays a big part of the national pride and when it comes to talented kids at primary schools sport has been more heavily subsidized by state funds than education and culture.
Also, when I started researching in my teenage days what habits make people successful and happy, I have realized that regular workouts even at the amateur level were one of most important habits that help successful people push their limits, as well as increasing their self-confidence and patience for building muscles or losing weight. The long-term benefits of exercising spill over in other areas of people's life such as career or relationships since active people tend to implement strategies of longer endurance and delayed gratitude.
Last but not least, Olympic games are the remarkable period to celebrate excellence because athletes, coaches, spectators, fans, and sponsors constantly adapt their perspective of what human body can possibly endure and achieve within different time spans. The same passion is required to make a blast in under 10 seconds and during 120 minutes, but the strategies among sports heavily differ.
Below I outline ways that you can take part in three massive shifts of Olympic Games experience. Thanks to the blast of technology the future is promising for both the devoted fans and recreational athletes.
Support values of Olympism.
According to The International Olympic Committee, ''the goal of the Olympic Movement is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practiced without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity, fair play.''
Digital devices and content democratized all aspects of our lives, giving the voice to the groups that previously could not transparently connect themselves unless they have met in person before. The same principle applies to the area of Olympic games and you can promote Olympism in these ways.
Still, it takes a lot more than likes and retweets for sensitive topics such as international security, natural disasters and immigration crisis to help the people who are protagonists in those unavoidable, shattering challenges. Olympic Games innovated themselves while staying in tune with the compelling mission from Roman times: Faster, Higher, Stronger as the component of empathy was added -- 10 athletes from Refugee Olympic Team are raising awareness to the conflict areas in their homelands and the greatest migration after WWII. During 306 events in 28 sports with over 11000 athletes participating at Rio 2016 this may be the drop in the ocean or an onset of a bigger movement. BBC reported how Refugee Olympic athletes are doing and as a source of additional inspiration I recommend reading two sources: the novel Do Not Tell Me You are Afraid about the brave Somali migrant runner Samia at 2012 London and International Olympic Committee's publication about the contribution of sport in the post 2015 development agenda.
Become the athlete yourself.
When we set the goal of exercising more often, we may fall into the trap of being too lenient or too strict with ourselves. ''From now on, I will not eat any carbs; sweets are a big no; and I will exercise every day.'' But new habit formation will not work if we set the bar too high in the very beginning. Instead, to change our patterns and reach the desirable outcome, we need to exercise x times a week which we can keep to ourselves as a promise. A little bit of physics is useful so as not to get frustrated with ourselves. As Samuel Thomas Davies puts it, activation energy is the initial spark needed to catalyze a reaction and it is needed to overcome inertia and spark a positive habit. The laws of physics function to our advantage: we need to decrease the activation energy for positive habits and increase it to eliminate the negative ones.
We most often think of habits in their entirety instead of perceiving them as single steps connected together so exercising consists of packing your sport bag, traveling to the venue, changing your clothes, warming up, exercising, showering, warming down and traveling back.
Instead many authors advise that we focus on the very first activity and try it for 20 seconds. Very fast the habit will get activated and we will be doing what our intention was. Therefore, when it comes to pursuing certain sports, you may intend to purchase the gear for it. For example, you can find best football gloves here and you can do so according to five criteria: grip, mobility, durability, ball feel and price.
Another book for upgrading your champion mindset is Timothy Gallwey's 1970s classic The Inner Game of Tennis "Every game is composed of two parts, an outer game and an inner game." The former is played against opponents, and contains a lot of contradictory advice; while the latter one is played within the mind of the player, and its main obstacles are self-doubt and anxiety. You should pick up the tennis racquet according to your level, the purpose of your game, the usage (which depends on your grip technique and playing on different materials) and the variety of racquets wait for you here.
Like other martial arts, boxing teaches us patience and strategy. Shadow boxing is one of the best ways to try out different scenarios and movements since you box without the opponent actually present and all the boxing equipment you need for the first step is here. The boxing strategy becomes more effective with the lack of the real opponent that even Muhammad Ali must have practiced, as he lived according to his credo, ''Do not count the days, make the days count.''
If you want to enact the iconic scenes of your basketball idols, even for recreational purposes, install portable basketball hoops that are listed on this website according to backboard size, material, adjustment range and price. Jordan and the squad of his era and the disciples afterwards are the perfect example of becoming more successful as they failed more often. In Michael's own words, ''I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.''
Integrate Olympic fan love with disruptive technology.
So far McDonald's, P&G and Visa had the exclusivity to advertise during the games, but the advertising Rule 40 may get more loose.
The good news is that if the Olympic Games IP such as the Olympic rings, and terms such as "Olympics" "2016" "Rio," "games" and "gold" are not mentioned explicitly on social media, even SME brands that booked Olympic athletes to endorse them can get international visibility.
While deeply emotional videos such as P&G's Thank You, Mom! remind us how innovative sport advertising is, the future lies in the user-generated content which is beyond social media.
Rio Olympic Games are iconic because for the first time in the history of media virtual and augmented reality are brought to us in the context of Olympic Games movement. For example, Google merged together travel, culture and social entrepreneurship and in its project Rio: Beyond the Map encouraged users to visit Rio with VR and to increase awareness about 20 percent of city's population that live without address and that the company wants to map out in its global initiative On the Map.
Another outstanding example is the Brazilian broadcasting company Glovo that integrated augmented reality into its offer. Their AR graphics are diverse with stats and data points up to the very 3D captures of players that come alive in the studio.
According to VR World 85 hours of Olympic coverage would be enabled for the most eager VR early adopters instead of HD that has become a mainstream.
Until very next Olympic Games, virtual reality experience will become more seamless so that the engaging content justifies slightly awkward experience with wearables. Those who may not be able to afford tickets or do not like crowded events, may still get to immerse themselves in the reality of virtual.
As Rio 2016 Games are getting close to stunning finals, the aforementioned actions may make you fully prepared for your best stamina at Tokyo 2020. The life is made of many moments where we should focus on fully experiencing each but there are highlights worth waiting such as ''waiting four years for under 10 seconds of Usain Bolt.''