If you are rejoicing that at last those very boring Olympic Games have finished and you can go back to watching NBC’s regular programming, I’m sorry to disappoint you. Even though I wrote about them two weeks ago, and Emily did last week, I will ask your forgiveness for just one final article. Then, I’m done. Honest. No more mention of the Olympics until Los Angeles in 2028. I promise.

You see, I really do love the Games, and I miss them already. I’ve started dreaming of how I can pop out to LA in four years to experience the fun, the glory, the drama. There are two venues I’d be sure to visit (and no, they are not the breakdancing and the rock climbing.)

These two venues are symbols of dramatically different worlds. One is pure sport. It is simple, beautiful, and open to anyone. It’s track and field. Can there be, anywhere in the world, a sport that is less tainted by money, science, or privilege of birth? Take long distance running. There’s no need for fancy equipment or mystifying technique. Just run, Forrest, run. Track and field is a great leveler. Most of the 200 countries who took part in the Olympics sent track and field competitors. It’s global, it’s egalitarian, and it’s pure. (OK, by ‘pure’ I’m assuming no one was taking performance-enhancing drugs.) Track and field is a celebration of humanity in all it’s diverse shapes, sizes, colors, languages, and talents.

The other venue is home to something very different. It’s the velodrome. The number of competitors in track cycling is way smaller than track and field because they represent only those countries that can afford $100,000 bikes and $100,000,000 velodromes. And yet, what it lacks in purity it makes up for in thrills. There’s nothing more exciting than track cyclists rounding the final bend tire-to-tire at 40 miles an hour (with no gears and no brakes!)

My personal heroine of the Paris Games was a woman who managed to slip under the radar of most American media outlets. While we were watching billionaires play basketball, Sifan Hassan was doing something almost beyond belief. Hassan wasn’t blessed with money, opportunities, or college sponsorship. She was born in Ethiopia. It was there, as a child, that she ran. And ran. And ran.

When she was 15 she and her family fled civil war in Ethiopia and took refuge in the Netherlands, whose people now reap the rewards for their hospitality by watching Hassan win medals wearing the bright orange Dutch shirt.

Hassan won three medals in Paris – a bronze in the 5,000 meters, another bronze in the 10,000 meters, and (almost impossibly) the gold in the marathon, just 35 hours after the 10,000 meter race. This is superhuman. It’s the equivalent of Michael Phelps winning the 200 meters freestyle, then medaling the next day in synchronized swimming. The natural talent needed to run the range of distances between 5,000 metres and 26 miles, free of fancy coaching, technical knowledge, and scientific expertise, is freakish. Unless you’re Sifan Hassan.

Being the GOAT (the Greatest Of All Time) doesn’t involve money, prestige, or fame. Now, if you’re expecting me to mention Jesus’ teaching the subject of greatness, do I need to? I think you have joined the dots nicely for yourself. Enjoy your humility – it’s the key to greatness.