From the new “breaking” event to the women’s broad jump, the exuberance of the Paris Olympics has inspired me. The competition undoubtedly has been fierce, but it’s also been joyous, filled with fist bumps, high fives and hugs for teammates and competitors alike.

Snoop Dogg, torch carrier, personality and super fan, summed it up in an interview with NBC’s Mike Tirico Thursday night: “It’s about bringing the whole world together.”

I’ve loved the Olympics, particularly in summer, since I was a kid. That’s when I learned, in 1960, that 100-meter and 200-meter gold medalist Wilma Rudolph was one of 22 children and had overcome polio as a kid to become the world’s fastest woman.  That story left an imprint.

Today, in 2024, as well, the subtext of the games remains resilience – the capacity to persevere, to overcome past illnesses, injuries, obstacles and defeats, sometimes simply to achieve a personal best, but other times to emerge triumphant.  It’s a subtext and message from which fans of all ages can learn.

In gymnastics, we witnessed the extraordinary skill and courage of American gymnast Simone Biles, now 27, who came back from the abuse suffered at the hands of the former gymnastic team doctor and the psychological fallout that led her to drop out of most of the Tokyo games. This year, in Paris, she led her teammates to the all-around team gold and also landed two personal golds and a silver medal.   There was the equally extraordinary courage of her talented teammate Suni Lee, who was diagnosed with incurable kidney disease in 2023 yet not only returned to gymnastics but joined Biles in winning the team gold and then earned two bronze medals in the individual all-around and uneven bars.

In track and field, there was the ebullient Noah Lyles, a lifetime asthmatic who won the 100-yard dash in a photo finish but then fell short of his dream of doubling in the 200-meter when he slipped to bronze. Minutes later, he was wheeled off by the medical team and soon disclosed he’d run the race with Covid, an extraordinary burden for anyone.

The surprise winner of that race, 21-year-old Letsile Tebogo of Botswana, had his own story. He became the first African Olympic champion of the race and the youngest 200-meter winner in nearly seven decades.  Yet he ran the race in the shadow of his mother’s death earlier this year.

It is stories like these, along with agonizing losses such as the U.S. men suffered in the 100-meter relay, extraordinary comebacks such as that suffered by U.S. 1,500-meter winner Cole Hocker, and blazing triumphs such as 400-meter hurdler Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s world record that keep me watching the games way past my typically early bedtime.

On the weekend, I’ll be carving out time for the men’s basketball finals, as the US team, after roaring back from a 13-point fourth quarter deficit to Serbia in the semi-finals, take on none other than the team of host France. And I’ll check out the men’s break-dancing, or breaking, the newest and perhaps hippest competition in this summer’s games.

Then it’ll be a wrap. I’ll miss the Olympics. In the midst of a world wracked with violence and war, and a presidential race that magnifies the great divides of American politics, the games have provided a sense of hope, through the stories and the comradery of extraordinary athletes and individuals.

Jerry Lanson coaches writing at Harvard Kennedy School and is a professor emeritus at Emerson College. He set his school mile record at Carle Place High School on Long Island as a sophomore in 1965.