Esau McCaulley

Is it the pressure?

Is it the scrutiny?

In the entire world, like, you know, there's one person who did slightly better.

I just can't imagine.

I mean, I understand it's the nature of the sport, but I'm not the top three of any particular thing.

Like, nothing.

So it's amazing.

It's amazing.

Well, one of the things that makes this particularly complicated is the nature of the American political division in the moment, because most of our division is around how we treat the immigrant and the foreigner.

The spirit of Olympics is international cooperation and competition, and one

of the things that's been great about the Olympics is how we've seen American athletes be gracious in defeat.

That's actually, I think, one of the key stories that has come along.

And so when we are the people who are saying, oh, we want to take Canada, we want to take Greenland, it's kind of hard for us to say we want to see America dominate in an international competition.

That was at least kind of how I thought I would go into the Olympics, but I just did like

a bit of research.

And what the athlete just said was actually true, that an American Olympian does not represent the current policies of a particular administration that's in power.

And one of the things that's been surprising is how little I've thought about Donald Trump during these Olympics.

I've just been watching the athletes.

And I have found myself being able to celebrate them in a way that I hadn't necessarily expected I would be able to do this year.

And so that's been, for me, it's been easier than I thought.