NewsPronto

 
Men's Weekly

.

USA Conversation

The Conversation USA

The Conversation USA

Fandom usually means tracking your favorite team for years − so why are the Olympics so good at making us root for sports and athletes we tune out most of the time?

  • Written by Noah Cohan, Assistant Director of American Culture Studies, Washington University in St. Louis
imageA fan cheers for U.S. tennis players in the men's doubles gold medal match during the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano

Every four years, millions of Americans join billions of their fellow humans across the globe to celebrate the astonishing athletic feats at the Summer Olympics.

Warm-weather sports such as swimming and...

Read more: Fandom usually means tracking your favorite team for years − so why are the Olympics so good at...

More Articles ...

  1. To guard against cyberattacks in space, researchers ask ‘what if?’
  2. Why US schools need to shake up the way they teach physics
  3. Flirting with disaster: When endangered wild animals try to mate with domestic relatives, both wildlife and people lose
  4. Why Nepal had a religious monarchy − and why some people want it back
  5. Supreme Court of Oklahoma says no to Catholic charter school – but this may not be the end of the boundary-pushing saga
  6. Even short trips to space can change an astronaut’s biology − a new set of studies offers the most comprehensive look at spaceflight health since NASA’s Twins Study
  7. Hurricane Beryl’s rapid intensification, Category 5 winds so early in a season were alarming: Here’s why more tropical storms are exploding in strength
  8. Hurricane Beryl’s rapid intensification and Category 5 winds are alarming: Here’s why more tropical storms are exploding in strength
  9. The Catholic Church is using the upcoming Paris Olympics to engage young people − but several popes have already promoted sports as a way to teach Christian values
  10. Colorado is home to the longest-running gay rodeo in the world
  11. Cultural differences impede trade for most countries — but not China
  12. Charities are allowed to do some lobbying, but many do none at all
  13. From diagnosing brain disorders to cognitive enhancement, 100 years of EEG have transformed neuroscience
  14. ‘Above the law’ in some cases: Supreme Court gives Trump − and future presidents − a special exception that will delay his prosecution
  15. Supreme Court kicks cases about tech companies’ First Amendment rights back to lower courts − but appears poised to block states from hampering online content moderation
  16. Supreme Court rules that Trump had partial immunity as president, but not for unofficial acts − 4 essential reads
  17. To insure or self-insure? The question homeowners must answer amid impact of climate change
  18. How was popcorn discovered? An archaeologist on its likely appeal for people in the Americas millennia ago
  19. Disability community has long wrestled with ‘helpful’ technologies – lessons for everyone in dealing with AI
  20. What’s next after Supreme Court curbs regulatory power: More focus on laws’ wording, less on their goals
  21. 5 questions after the NCAA’s $2.75B settlement to pay college athletes
  22. Black economic boycotts of the civil rights era still offer lessons on how to achieve a just society
  23. Loss of Supreme Court legitimacy can lead to political violence
  24. US’s terrorist listing of European far-right group signals fears of rising threat − both abroad and at home
  25. Knowing when to call it quits takes courage and confidence - 3 case studies
  26. Supreme Court rules cities can ban homeless people from sleeping outdoors – Sotomayor dissent summarizes opinion as ‘stay awake or be arrested’
  27. How camping bans − like the one the Supreme Court just upheld − can fit into ‘hostile design’: Strategies to push out homeless people
  28. Supreme Court makes prosecution of Trump on obstruction charge more difficult, with ruling to narrowly define law used against him and Jan. 6 rioters
  29. ICE detainees suffer preventable deaths − Q A with a medical researcher about systemic failures
  30. Federal funding for major science agencies is at a 25-year low
  31. ChatGPT and the movie ‘Her’ are just the latest example of the ‘sci-fi feedback loop’
  32. ‘Authentic’ ayahuasca rituals sought by tourists often ignore Indigenous practices and spiritual grounding
  33. Biden crashes, Trump lies: A campaign-defining presidential debate
  34. Supreme Court sidesteps case on whether federal law on medical emergencies overrides Idaho’s abortion ban
  35. Supreme Court rejects settlement with OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma over legal protections for the Sackler family that owned the company
  36. Gazans’ extreme hunger could leave its mark on subsequent generations
  37. Fireworks sales have fallen back to Earth after years of explosive growth – here’s why
  38. 5 ways anti-diversity laws affect LGBTQ+ people and research in higher ed
  39. The science behind splashdown − an aerospace engineer explains how NASA and SpaceX get spacecraft safely back on Earth
  40. Lucy, discovered 50 years ago in Ethiopia, stood just 3.5 feet tall − but she still towers over our understanding of human origins
  41. AI companies train language models on YouTube’s archive − making family-and-friends videos a privacy risk
  42. How the surrealists used randomness as a catalyst for creative expression
  43. Pope Francis may have surprised many by inviting comedians to the Vatican, but the value of humor has deep roots in Catholic tradition
  44. What people say today about the first televised presidential debate, between Nixon and JFK, doesn’t match first reactions in 1960
  45. How does hail grow to the size of golf balls and even grapefruit? The science behind this destructive weather phenomenon
  46. For many Olympic medalists, silver stings more than bronze
  47. Diplomacy, sanctions and soft power have failed to deter Iran’s anti-West agenda − could a new Iranian president change that?
  48. College may not be the ‘great equalizer’ − luck and hiring practices also play a role, a sociologist explains
  49. The world’s fourth mass coral bleaching is underway, but well-connected reefs may have a better chance to recover
  50. More women in venture capital doesn’t mean more funding for female-led businesses, new research suggests − here’s why