Andy Bull writes about crying athletes at the all-important Olympic competition:

The amount of tears being shed at the Olympic Games is an explanation of why they are so uniquely engrossing. For the majority of the athletes competing, the four years and more of single-minded devotion to their sport brings few great rewards. There aren’t many huge wages, most don’t get to live in mansions and often they’ll struggle even to pay their mortgages. If they’re not funded through grants then they’ve had to sacrifice parts of their normal lives, their careers and relationships to train to compete here. If they are full-time athletes then their goal is even clearer, and they have even fewer excuses for not reaching it.