--- title: Let the 2016 Rio Games Begin description: For some 125 years, we have been asking too much of the Olympic Games. Universal brotherhood? Tell it to the fans who saw blood in... canonical: https://time.com/4428036/let-the-games-begin/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-07-28T10:49:58.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T23:36:44.505Z article:section: Sports og:title: Let the 2016 Rio Games Begin og:description: For some 125 years, we have been asking too much of the Olympic Games. Universal brotherhood? Tell it to the fans who saw blood in... og:url: https://time.com/4428036/let-the-games-begin/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb01333a66641f651/69889fd88e0601e17f466ee9/2016-olympic-games-in-rio-brazil.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: 2016-olympic-games-in-rio-brazil og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Let the 2016 Rio Games Begin twitter:description: For some 125 years, we have been asking too much of the Olympic Games. Universal brotherhood? Tell it to the fans who saw blood in... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb01333a66641f651/69889fd88e0601e17f466ee9/2016-olympic-games-in-rio-brazil.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Let the 2016 Rio Games Begin by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Jul 28, 2016 10:49 AM UTC  Rio sprawls around Maracanã Stadium, site of the opening and closing ceremonies Rio sprawls around Maracanã Stadium, site of the opening and closing ceremoniesSebastian Liste—Noor Images by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Jul 28, 2016 10:49 AM UTC For some 125 years, we have been asking too much of the Olympic Games. Universal brotherhood? Tell it to the fans who saw blood in the water when the Soviet Union met Hungary in water polo in 1956, or heard the chants of “U-S-A” when the Americans beat the Soviets at ice hockey in 1980 during the depths of the Cold War. Idealized sportsmanship? Not as long as positive drug tests remain a staple of Olympiads. For host nations, the Olympic torch can be a seductive illusion, as Brazil is finding out. How long will it be before the mention of Rio no longer conjures thoughts of Zika and raw sewage? Yet somehow the Games still deliver more than enough: of beauty, of drama, of excitement, of joy. When the hype finally gives way to the sports, we are moved by the athletes themselves, young people of great talent yoked to urgent souls. In fractions of an inch and hundredths of a second, they measure out portions of hope, tangible signs of human progress against the often heavy evidence of stagnation. They pull back the curtain of what is to reveal a glimpse of what can be. And so we say: let the games begin. **_Read more_**_:_ [_Kohei Uchimura, Gymnastics, Japan_](http://time.com/4424414/rio-athletes/photo/japans-kohei-uchimura-performs-his-horizontal-bar-routine-in-the-mens-apparatus-final-at-the-world-gymnastics-championships-at-the-hydro-arena-in-glasgow/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4428036/let-the-games-begin/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4428036/let-the-games-begin/"},"headline":"Let the 2016 Rio Games Begin","datePublished":"2016-07-28T10:49:58.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T23:36:44.505Z","description":"For some 125 years, we have been asking too much of the Olympic Games. Universal brotherhood? 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