I know that many of us suffer from some kind of Olympic fever at the moment. However, it's only a temporary disease for us viewers since we are afflicted only quadrennially.

Despite the angst of not enough snow and too warm temperatures, despite the selection of a city where the average February mercury usually is around 50 degrees, despite malfunctioning ice machines—in the end it is all about the athletes. And they inspire me.

Their background stories are of dedication and deprivation, of entire families who have uprooted themselves so this special child could develop all of his or her gifts. We ooh and aah as we hear them, but then the competition begins.

I watched races won by hundredths of a second. How is that even measurable? Someone tried to explain it to me by using the fluttering of a hummingbird's wings, but I remain stunned as these athletes descend mountain sides on skis and boards and fragile pieces of equipment that I know represent engineering finely tuned, and I say my heartfelt "Wow!"

I gasped as the mogul winner demonstrated her ski with an errant stone embedded in it—no time to find a replacement—so she hurtled down the hill to victory despite it. The ice is too soft, the snow too slushy—it makes little difference. Victors emerge triumphant over the conditions.

I checked the word "champion" in my dictionary because I had forgotten its derivation. Of course, it comes from the Latin, campus, a field, and so the champ is the one to whom the field belongs or, in this case of these winter games, it is the mountain, the ice, the snow-blanketed fields of cross-country.

When the winners mount the podium they so often come from the bigger countries, the ones with the most resources for a certain sport. Yet it is the little countries that moved me during the parade of athletes on opening night. I cheered for countries that sent one competitor, for the tropical nations with a skier proudly making their way into the arena. They were there!

We are far from what I imagine the ancient Greeks had in mind. We have added sports that no one had heard of a generation ago but, whether we thrill to downhill speed or agonize over the almost motionless movement of curling, the devotees of each can discern the skills involved.

I remain in awe as I admire them. Although my winter skills barely reach those of the Aflac duck making angels in the snow, I love the Olympics for allowing us all to have the thrill of being there to celebrate skill and grit and resolve. The field indeed belongs to each of the athletes, medals or not.