Paris was the perfect place for the DEI Olympics

In what was perhaps the most compassionate moment in an Olympics full of them, spectators watching Algerian boxer Imane Khelif win the women’s welterweight gold medal by unanimous decision rose out of their seats, many waving Algerian flags, and chanted her name.

“Imane! Imane! Imane!” they shouted as Khelif did a little Ali shuffle to finish the fight she dominated.

Khelif had been at the center of the ugliest controversy of the Paris Games a week earlier, when her Italian opponent quit after 46 seconds, saying Khelif’s powerful punches put her in danger. An onslaught of hysterical transphobic misinformation ensued, with prominent conservative culture warriors such as JK Rowling posting inflammatory messages: “Watch this then explain why you’re OK with a man beating a woman in public for your entertainment.”

Khelif was born female and has always competed as a female, declared the International Olympic Committee, which swiftly defended Khelif’s athletic record and personal dignity, as did the leadership of Algeria, where it is illegal to identify as transgender or gay.

What happened next ensured that the Paris Games of 2024 will go down in history as the DEI Olympics -- the Olympics of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, in a nation whose motto is Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (liberty, equality, fraternity), in a capital originally nicknamed the City of Light for its commitment to the values of the Enlightenment.

Khelif became a hero.

In another time and place, Khelif would have been banned, as she was at the 2023 world championships by the since-discredited International Boxing Association, which said but did not produce evidence that a genetic test showed she had male XY chromosomes and a disorder of sexual development (DSD) that gave her an unfair physical advantage. Khelif would have been discarded as “other,” a freak of nature (as if all elite athletes aren’t freaks of nature). She would have been bullied into oblivion.

Khelif and the DEI Olympics are just what the politically-fractured, war-torn world needs in the summer of 2024. Not only was she embraced for her victory over hate but she was celebrated for hitting back at gender stereotypes that define femininity and masculinity as either-or.

Paris was the ideal place for the Olympics of tolerance. The Opening Ceremony featured performers in drag, which ultra-right Christians derided as “vulgar” and “Satanic.” Paris has come a long way since hosting the first modern Games in 1900, where women were an afterthought. In 2024, the Olympics finally achieved gender parity.

U.S. water polo goalie Ashleigh Johnson competed at her third Olympics in Paris. She’s still the only Black player on the team, and one of very few in the sport. She is speaking out more about diversity and “embracing her roots after shying away from the subject as a younger player,” Coach Adam Krikorian said.

“Our sport and a lot of aquatic sports do not look representative of the U.S., and I don’t think we have the best athletes competing until we see good representation,” said Johnson, who grew up in the Redland in south Miami-Dade and graduated from Ransom Everglades High. She and her teammates fell short of their goal of winning a fourth straight gold medal (would have been Johnson’s third) and lost in the bronze medal game to finish fourth. “Having access and having role models -- people who look like you -- is so important to get kids even interested in the sport and feel like they belong. Taking those barriers away and creating a pathway to opportunities is super important. There’s a lot of work to be done. There’s a lot of a lot more we could be doing.”

Simone Biles talked about how gymnastics has changed from a sport with only a few singular Black stars like Dominique Dawes and Gabby Douglas to one with Black, Asian-American and Hispanic athletes winning medals.

“We’ve seen an increasing number of all-Black or diverse podiums in men’s and women’s gymnastics,” she said. One of the reasons she and Jordan Chiles decided to bow to Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade on the floor exercise medal podium was to accentuate an all-Black sweep in the Olympic spotlight. “We want to help young girls see themselves in these places.”

Of the 10,500 athletes at the Paris Games, half are women. The IOC, recognizing its stodgy, sexist image, has been adding women’s sports and mixed events at a steady rate to achieve equity.

The U.S. women, who are reaping the rewards of Title IX, not only won more medals than the U.S. men but would rank third in the total medals tally, behind the full U.S. team and China.

Olympic mothers got a boost in Paris from Allyson Felix, the 11-time Olympic medalist in track and field. Felix, who has a 6-year-old daughter, initiated the creation of the first childcare center in the Olympic Village, with plans to expand it in Los Angeles.

The most inclusive Olympics in history welcomed at least 193 out LGBTQ athletes, according to the website OutSports. Diver Tom Daley, basketball player Brittney Griner, sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson and middle distance runner Nikki Hiltz were among those competing.

“About 500 anti-LGBTQ laws have been passed during this politically crazy time in the United States,” Hiltz said. “Sport can set a positive, inclusive example. I feel loved and supported at the Olympics.”

U.S. rugby sevens player Ilona Maher, ridiculed on social media for her big shoulders and aggressive style of play, countered with funny body-positive posts that have made her a Tik Tok star and everyone’s buddy at what she calls the Olympic Villa.

Table tennis grandma Zeng Zhiying, 58, Canadian equestrian athlete Mario Deslauriers, 59, and Australian equestrian athlete Mary Hanna, 69, made strong cases against age discrimination.

Boxer Cindy Ngamba made history by becoming the first athlete on the Refugee Olympic Team to win a medal -- a bronze. Ngamba, who fled Cameroon as a child, said she was proud to serve as an inspiration to the world’s 120 million displaced people.

“Never feel that you are forgotten,” she said.

Cheerful Parisians celebrated all types of athletes, whether it was nerdy French table tennis brothers Felix and Alexis Lebrun or marathoner Kinzang Lharmo of Bhutan, who finished last, 90 minutes behind winner Sifan Hassan. Spectators lining the course urged Lharmo to keep going when she stopped, and ran alongside her toward the finish line.

All that love, sportsmanship, and enthusiasm made for an Olympic rebound from the 2021 Tokyo Summer Games and 2022 Beijing Winter Games, which were not only held in inconvenient time zones for American audiences but were doomed by the COVID pandemic to fall flat, devoid of spectators and staged for TV. Athletes wore masks, avoided each other at the Olympic Village and flew home as soon as they were done.

Paris, a photogenic tourist mecca, proved to be the cure for Olympic malaise. Athletes, fans and TV viewers alike ooh-la-la-ed over beach volleyball at the Eiffel Tower, fencing at the Grand Palais, equestrian events at Versailles, triathlon and open water swimming in the Seine River, tennis at Roland Garros, track and field at the Estade de France lavender oval, cyclists passing by historic landmarks.

NBCUniversal was grateful, posting a 16-day average of 31.3 million viewers – up 82% from Tokyo (17.2 million).

“We needed these Olympic Games. I haven’t felt this type of Olympic energy in so long,” said NBC commentator and Nagano figure skating gold medalist Tara Lipinski. “It’s a reminder of the power of the Olympic Games. The feeling of joy and hope and camaraderie.”

It sounds corny, but in a host nation weary of divisive politics, and for Americans exhausted by 24/7 presidential campaigning, the Olympics has had a cleansing, galvanizing effect.

“This is the time – obviously viewing habits have changed, the way people feel about sports may have changed – but this is the time for the Olympics to get its groove back, and it’s turning out that way,” said Bob Costas, NBC’s former Olympics MC.

Terrence Burns, a sports marketing expert, said the Paris Olympics came along just when the world needed them most. ‘

“The Olympics have always been a vaccine against hate, fear and misunderstanding. That is precisely why they were invented,” he wrote on a social media post. “Paris 2024 proved that the Olympics’ power to unite and inspire us, to force us to take a beat and be proud of who we are still persists in our hearts.”