Now it’s happening again. The tears and the screams. The overflowing love. It doesn’t happen very often. Perhaps it is only when we see sporting achievements that we encounter such boundless and widespread admiration.
The reaction to the great achievements of the Swedish Olympic heroes reminds me of the time when, as a child, I was able to witness phenomena like Ingemar Stenmark and Björn Borg. When my eye – and this undeniably happens every now and then – notices that a tear is about to run forward, I sometimes react with surprise. But what is it about their performances that can evoke such strong emotions?
Perhaps Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the 18th century French thinker, is right when he says that man is the only animal that is not satisfied with the nature with which he was born. It differs from other animals precisely because of its single-minded effort to constantly try to become more and better than what it already is.
The thought keeps coming back Passage through the history of Western ideas: Man is enigmatic and frightening in his ability to transcend himself and, according to his own desires and dreams, change not only his physical condition but also the world around him. While termites, snakes and dogs remain what they are for generations, humanity is constantly growing and transforming into something different and new.
One of the cornerstones of modern society – the belief in progress – arises from this realization: that through the constant expansion of our knowledge, people will also expand their control over existence.
Not long ago, she was tied to the earth and forced to fight overwhelming beasts with clubs and spears. A few generations later, she caresses the sands of the moon with one hand while developing weapons with which to wipe out all of humanity with the other.
Progress is, of course, largely a myth, especially when it ignores the unpleasant fact that human development is always ambiguous and that our quest to improve our lot always tends to become a myth Pharmacon: at the same time a poison and a cure, a good (for someone) that always runs the risk of producing a new evil (for someone else).
But then we have sports fantastic world. Here progress is much more measurable and clear. Here we find aesthetic and moral admiration in a more refined form, for it probably springs from an experience of triumph that each of us carries in silence – the moments when we ourselves managed to overcome our original physical conditions.
Because that’s exactly what needs to be emphasized: The fact that humans try to improve their nature arises from the simple fact that we are by nature – that is, from birth – completely helpless and incapable of living.
While some animal species are on their feet just a few minutes after birth, it takes many months before a human child can crawl on the ground independently – and even longer before it takes its first staggered steps. Not to mention how long it takes before we can stand on our own two feet in a basic sense.
And then the supermen of sport come along and show us that these original victories can not only be repeated, but even increased. Can be extended by a few more steps in all directions. For example, when Armand Duplantis repeatedly breaks new barriers and shows that it is possible to jump another centimeter towards the sky – from the earth to which he was originally bound.
As Duplantis after his new one World record (6.30) in Tokyo – on September 15, 2025 – when asked what drives him to jump higher and higher, he replied with a wink to Rousseau: “I want to be the best possible version of myself.”
In other words, when we celebrate the heroes of sports, perhaps it is because they show us a way out of our earthly shackles
In other words, when we celebrate the heroes of sports, perhaps it is because they show us a way out of our earthly shackles. They answer the question of how far we can expand the field of human possibilities, to what extent we can remove the overwhelming force that life imposes on us – without cheating.
Ecce Homo! See what man can do after all! Experience how the spirit must not be the slave of the body and death, but the master of life!
The beauty of the sporting spectacle is that it so rarely ends in destruction and madness, even though at its core it is about volcanic clashes between human wills. If the history of evolution shows us that rivalry and competition are part of our biological as well as social destiny, sport offers an arena in which man does not have to kill his neighbor to assert his worth.
sport Faustian This character is beautifully expressed in Muhammad Ali’s dream of one day organizing tournaments on Mars to prove that he was the best boxer not only in our world, but in the entire solar system. “Why did we go to the moon? Because the moon is there. Why are we going to go to Mars? Because it is there. If you don’t dare to take risks, you won’t achieve much in life. I’m a risk taker. Now I’m betting on immortality.”
In this regard remembered Sport about the sublimated power of cultural life and science. Here, too, we really meet superheroes who, through self-improvement, have overcome their original conditions, forces of will who have not only overcome life’s many difficulties, but have also shown through unbending determination that any defeat can be turned into victory, that there are always new battles to be fought.
Of course, we don’t have to believe in the divinity of an Achilles or a Jesus to understand the power of the promises these figures convey. The Homeric and Biblical stories – to name just two examples – nevertheless offer us a mental equivalent of the physical high jump pole. Anyone who can reach or even surpass such stylistic and narrative heights will be enveloped in love and, at best, win a place among the immortals.
Friedrich Nietzsche’s dream of the “superman” reminds us all of this in some way
Friedrich Nietzsche’s dream of the “superman” is recalled to some extent by all of us when we are fascinated by these figures bigger than life. For better or worse, of course.
It’s certainly not just that What the supermen of sport succeed in, which can be interesting, but also how the rest of us interpret what they have achieved. How we use their actions to elevate – or demean – ourselves.
Sport offers us neither a safe refuge from the dangerous ideals of perfection that make us ashamed of our own mediocrity, nor an obvious counterweight to the banal nationalism that consists in constantly seeking confirmation of the superiority of one’s own race or ethnicity.
And yet one can actually view this spectacle with deep admiration and fascination for what some people can do with their short time on Earth… and in it feel a certain pride in belonging to a race that can devote itself to things other than wiping each other out.
Read other essays from DN-kultur, such as Staffan Julén’s “Time for Greenlandic Independence after all Colonial Abuses.”
