United States Olympic and Paralympic Museum

 

July 19, 2021

United States Olympic and Paralympic Museum

Colorado Springs is known as Olympic City USA, as it home to the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee Headquarters, 20+ National Olympic Governing Bodies, more than 50 National Sport Organizations, the Colorado Springs Olympic and Paralympic Training Center and the sparkling new U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Museum.

Athletes and coaches have long recognized Colorado Springs as the epicenter of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Movements. The region boasts incredible natural training grounds, inspirational views and vistas and a commitment to excellence that transcends sports and infuses itself in the city’s educational, medical, technological and cultural assets. The newly opened museum boasts 60,000 square feet of display space spread over twelve galleries. The museum showcases the history of some of America’s greatest athletes and features artifacts, interactive exhibits and immersive technology that embody the Olympic and Paralympic movements. 

Kathy and I have watched the construction move along during our previous visits and now that the museum is actually open, we wanted to make sure that we headed into downtown Colorado Springs to check it out.  The exhibits housed in the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum showcase the evolution of the Games, from their birth in Ancient Olympia to the current Team USA hopefuls who are training just around the corner at the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Center. 

There are walls lined with more than 150 Olympic and Paralympic medals that were awarded to athletes for competition over the course of history and an impressive collection of Olympic and Paralympic torches. Among the artifacts on display are the “Miracle on Ice” scoreboard from the Lake Placid 1980 Olympic Games, where the U.S. men's ice hockey team stunned the Soviet Union, along with Shannon Miller’s famous white scrunchie she wore while competing in 1992 and 1996.

The collection is very impressive and the interactive features are plentiful and state of the art. The building itself is an architectural achievement and it is certainly worth a visit, but overall, the entire experience seemed a bit disingenuous as it focused almost exclusively on the rah, rah patriotic element of the Olympic experience with barely any reference to the scandals and negative aspects of the games throughout history.

Other than a well-done and interesting display about the terrorist attack in 1972 at the Munich games, there was barely any reference to other scandals including the recent sexual abuse scandal in women’s gymnastics. Not that they should necessarily bring focus to the negative when there are so many positive and heroic moments in any Olympic games, but to almost ignore such a huge story that casts the USOC in a negative light seems self-serving and a little misleading.

With the summer Olympics on tap for Toyko this summer, it seemed like a good time to visit the museum and it was pretty cool, I really enjoyed seeing the artifacts that they did have on hand and they had a decent selection of items related to the USA’s Olympic history. I wasn’t as taken by the interactive displays, though I am sure that has a lot to do with me being old and stodgy when it comes to museums in general. I am old school and prefer just seeing static displays of actual artifacts but I know that those exhibits no doubt appeal to a younger generation.

https://usopm.org/