Too bad there isn’t a way to put the Olympics theme song into the paper so you could hear it as you read (online you can find a way to play it simultaneously). I love the Olympics, both Summer and Winter, and I suspect part of it is becomes I’m of a certain age where we didn’t have as many options on television The Winter Games are under way and you can find me trying to watch as much of them as I can.

I get the impression some younger people don’t give a hoot about them. To them I say: watch a video of Franz Klammer or Dave Wottle winning their gold medals in the Winter and Summer Games respectively.

Let’s start in 1972.

I was just an elementary kid and the world was changing rapidly, not just because I was reaching that age where I was more aware. Society was changing and television was expanding our world.

That was the year the Olympic Games were changed forever. The Olympics have never been solely about sports even though they are a collection of sporting events. But those Games in Munich, West Germany, brought politics, conflict and more to the Olympics (side note, Detroit finished fourth in the bidding for the 1972 Summer Olympics).

In those days, it was rare to see any of the Olympic events live. Even the 1980 Miracle on Ice hockey game was shown on a tape delay and that took place in the U.S. However, the Munich Games went live for all the wrong reasons.

On Sept. 5 the Black September Palestinian terrorist organization took nine Israeli athletes and coaches hostage. Eventually all the Israelis and all but two of the Palestinians were killed. Jim McKay, the man synonymous with the Olympics, gave us not live sporting events but a live terrorist attack.

I was just days away from my 11th birthday and I didn’t fully comprehend what was going on, but I was able to figure it out and understand the simple part of the equation — some people took hostages and were likely going to kill them.

It was a dark day for the sporting world and the Olympics. Thankfully for me, that was the year of Dave Wottle and my love affair with the Olympics. It likely made the Munich Games a better memory for me.

The first thing that stands out when you watch an old video is that Wottle is wearing a golf cap. He also is way behind early in the race. The announcers even speculate about whether he is sick or hurt. Somehow, he keeps his pace, cuts the distance, and begins passing people — on the inside. He eventually passes two Kenyans and edges pre-race favorite Soviet Evgeny Arzhanov by the bill of his cap as Arzhanov stumbles.

In 1976, hope sprang eternal for “the best Olympics ever” following a sad ’72 Games. The Winter Games were in Innsbruck, Austria, and the Summer Games were in Montreal.

My family moved to Mancelona in the summer of 1973. That winter my friends, especially Scott Davenport, started teaching me how to ski. By the time the ’76 Winter Games started I had been skiing occasionally — and poorly — for a couple of years and had an interest in the skiing events. Little did I know that my love for the Olympics would span both Winter and Summer after the Innsbruck Games.

Hello Franz Klammer.

I still get goose bumps watching video of his gold medal run in the downhill. The hometown boy chasing Olympic gold. Frank Gifford and Bob Beatty called the run and they were as amazed as I’m sure every viewer was of Klammer’s run. There were at least a half dozen times he could have lost his balance and fallen. Every checkpoint they would yell out if he was on pace or not, Gifford would excitedly tell us that he almost lost his balance again.

Somehow Klammer navigated the course for gold in front of his fellow countrymen. He won the downhill by the blink of eye, 0.33 seconds — 33/100th of a second. That might have been the best 1:45.73 in sports ever.

They year I’m excited to see American snowboarder Chloe Kim in the halfpipe. She’s 17, amazingly gifted and Korean-American, so the Games have an added twist for her.

Who will be this year’s Klammer? I don’t know but it’s not important for me, I will love the Games from start to finish. If you aren’t an Olympics fan, give them a chance and maybe you’ll find a Franz Klammer or Dave Wottle moment.

Steve Murch can be reached via email at smurch@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5686. Follow Steve on Twitter @sm_alpenanews.