Closing ceremonies may actually be one Olympic ritual that’s better viewed on TV. Television picks out faces of individual athletes, so you can feel their emotions, their sense of the corny solemnity of the occasion. From the stands, it’s hard to see that. But what you do get is a majestic view of all of the athletes who took part in the Games, together in the same place. Theoretically, you may know the world is varied, but it isn’t until you see all those flags coming in that its full Noah’s Ark-like splendor is revealed. We have so many countries! So many languages! So many skin colors! So many customs, beliefs, religions! And all of them dissolved by the great universal solvent of synchronized swimming!

Looking at all of the athletes milling about on the field, united now in contemplation of Greg Norman driving golf balls off a float — at the end of history, do we all go to Disneyland? — it was impossible not to remember the battles they had engaged in for the past two and a half weeks. I had been privileged to witness hundreds of intense encounters, ferocious contests of will and skill and might. And to see all of the athletes together, rivals no more, celebrating with each other and the world the close of an ancient ritual of peaceful competition, was something rare and moving.

The United Nations, for all of its flaws, has a grandeur that derives from its role of resolving the world’s political issues. And the Olympic Games, for all of their flaws, have a grandeur that derives from their perhaps smaller, but more innocent role: bringing together the people of the world to play. It’s only sports, but the world finds no occasion to come together except this one. And you take brotherhood where you can get it.

For me, the high point of the last day came before the ceremonies began. The closing ceremonies always begin with the finish of the final Olympic event, the marathon, the runners ending their 26-mile run with a final lap in the stadium. The marathon may be the most unbelievable event of all. I was downtown at about 4 o’clock, riding my bike through Hyde Park, when a dragonfly-like swarm of helicopters overhead announced the marathon runners were going through. I had to catch the train to Olympic Park, which is 10 miles or so from downtown. I got right on and it blasted up there in 20 minutes. By the time I got through security, made my way into the stadium, bought a beer and found my seat, the leaders were nearing the stadium. Unbelievable — but I guess that’s what happens when you can run 26 straight five-minute miles.

The moment when Ethiopia’s Gezahgne Abera came running into the vast, roaring arena was epic, of course — the last and most grueling event of the Games, with its storied if dubious classical origins, ending under the Olympic flame. But the moment that stays with me took place about an hour later. Long after almost all the runners had completed the race, Elias Rodriguez, of the Federated States of Micronesia, came jogging wearily into the stadium. He was the last man in the field, and exhaustion was etched into his face. It is a tradition to cheer the stragglers, and the Aussies, with their great sense of sportsmanship and love of the underdog, had already given a fine ovation to Cambodian runner Rithya To, the next-to-last runner, who managed to stagger over the line before falling face-first to the track. And when Rodriguez began his final circuit, they clapped for him too.

But as he made his way around the track, something changed. The applause began to grow and swell, the sound cascading around the stadium as the lone figure trudged on. And then everyone was on their feet, cheering and clapping as Rodriguez went slowly by far below. It may not have been the loudest, but it was the deepest applause that I heard in the entire Games. We were saluting this one athlete, his effort, but we were saluting something more. We were saluting every athlete at the Games, the ones who won and the ones who lost, the great and the small, the famous and the obscure. And we were paying tribute to the best parts of ourselves, the elements that we had seen so nobly exemplified during these Games, the things that will endure when the world has long forgotten who won or lost a race: courage, tenacity and indomitable spirit.

And as the applause rang out, the sound falling like a waterfall or a hand on the shoulder, an odd refrain, a thought I’ve never had before, came into my mind: You can’t beat us, you can’t beat us. I don’t know who I was saying it to, but I know who I was saying it for. All of us.

Korean delegates erupted in cheers in the conference hall after IOC President Jacques Rogge opened a sealed envelope and read the words: “The International Olympic Committee has the honor of announcing that the 23rd Olympic Winter Games in 2018 are awarded to the city of Pyeongchang.”

The vote totals weren’t immediately released.

A majority was required for victory, meaning Pyeongchang received at least 48 votes among the eligible 95 voters.

It was the first time an Olympic bid race with more than two finalists was decided in the first round since 1995, when Salt Lake City defeated three others to win the 2002 Winter Games.

Had no majority been reached in the opening round, the city with the fewest votes would have been eliminated and the two remaining cities gone to a second and final ballot.

Pyeongchang had been determined to win in the first round after its previous two defeats. The Koreans had led in each of the first rounds in the votes for the 2010 and 2014 Games but then lost in the final ballots to Vancouver and Sochi.

Pyeongchang, whose slogan is “New Horizons,” campaigned on the theme that it deserved to win on a third try and will spread the Olympics to a lucrative new market in Asia and become a hub for winter sports in the region.

The Korean victory followed the IOC’s trend in recent votes, having taken the Winter Games to Russia (Sochi) for the first time in 2014 and giving South America its first Olympics with the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Now, the International Olympic Committee has reportedly written a letter to the Canadian National Olympic Committee “to find out a few more details,” and the team has issued a public apology. What’s the big deal, you might ask? For one, 18-year-old team member Marie-Philip Poulin was snapped holding a beer, and she’s just under the legal drinking age in British Columbia. OK, so that’s inappropriate, I guess — only, in her home of Quebec, the drinking age is 18. Are people really that scandalized that someone just weeks away from her 19th birthday was caught imbibing in Vancouver after winning an Olympic gold medal?

I suspect not. Judging by the online chatter over the “incident,” the age issue is but one more complaint shoveled onto the pile. Primarily at issue is that some perceive it as a display of poor sportsmanship, which I find kind of hilarious for two reasons: 1.) Ice hockey is one of the most impolite professional sports around (within five minutes of the first men’s hockey game I attended, two players had already resorted to fisticuffs on the ice), and 2.) Have these people never witnessed the hooting, hollering, fist-pumping, champagne-popping, and exclamations of “I’m goin’ to Disneyland!” at, like, any major sporting event? 

I hate to be predictable, but I gotta say it: I suspect there’s also a definite undercurrent of sexism here. For example, one blogger wrote:

My question is: Why ‘ladies’ play men’s sports and look so awkward (unlady like) in the process? Being a woman is all about being a woman (grace, softness…). Figure skating is by all standards a women’s sport, as we witnessed yesterday in Kim Yu-Na’s performance. Simply brilliant.

So ladies, make an attempt to look like females, stay away from men’s sports, don’t try to be like men, you know, that’s what the men are for.

Aw, I think he’s scared of the big bad lady athletes. Poor dude — we just aren’t used to seeing women engaged in such stereotypically manly celebration. Not only are they drinking beer, they’re also chugging champagne and smoking cigars. Looking through the photographs, you can almost hear their self-satisfied guttural belches — and, you know what? It makes me swoon in full-blown girl-crush mode. I mean, my cheeks actually ache because every time I catch a glimpse of those snapshots, I grin uncontrollably. Now these are some women I’d like to grab a beer with.

Why don’t all the haters take a note from these Canadian ladies: Grab a Molson’s and chill out, eh?