The Iranian

Today, I saw Usain Bolt at the Engenho de Dentro Stadium, and the entire crowd apparently just came to see some minutes of him on the lane. This is the second time I saw him live; the first was last year, in a small competition at a rainy morning at Gavea, here in Rio as well. It was something of a symbolic event, a promo for his awesomeness, a publicity event celebrities do from time to time. But now was the real deal. I mean, it was a mere qualifying bout with no medals at stake, but now it's an official Olympic event. And once he was done in the lane, audiences left in droves, as if everything had been over (when it wasn't). People there were just waiting to see him for a few moments, in a manner that it felt all the other athletic competitions happening there - before and after - were just fillers.

But the Olympic Games are much more massive than just than just Usain, Michael Phelps or Rafael Nadal: most of the Games are composed by "little people". We're talking of thousands of components - most of them without the luxury of having their own Wikipedia pages. I mean, there are disputes out there without any Usain Bolt, but they happen anyway. There is an entire thing going on that most people don't realise, an obscure underworld.

During the games, there was a controversy surrounding a Namibian boxer who tried to sexually assault a housemaid. A situation so surreal I can't believe anyone would be this stupid: he may have underestimated our customs here if he thought he could get away with something this imbecilic. The 22-year-old man responsible for this - curiously named Jonas Jonas - was even the flag bearer for Namibia at the Opening Ceremony. It was a very unfortunate situation, but then I thought: would this man ever get his strange name in the headlines for anything else? I mean, it's not like he was going to win anything, or that his modality truly matters. The same goes for the Tongan flag bearer, who became an internet meme by parading his baby oil-soaked abs in Maracanã: if he had stepped into the stadium as everybody else was dressing, he would have disappeared right there. Most Olympic players are just numbers; no-one would pay good money or stay in massive queues to see them specifically. And yet, they are the ones who compose most of the Olympic Games.

And last week, I got to meet some others of such obscure numbers. I got a ticket for a boxing event in Barra, which consisted of 9 matches for featherweight and light heavyweight. After a lot of trials and tribulations, I got there minutes away from the event's beginning. I arrived at the makeshift stadium there thinking I had just missed some serious action: in the middle of the arena, officials were putting a man into a stretcher. But it was just training: things wouldn't get that extreme for the next hours.

Before the matches, there were some guys with microphones trying to cheer up the audience - they are literally cheerleaders. All of that cheering was a build up for something depressingly disappointing: the first fight was monotonous, and just a sample of the long eight other matches that would follow next. The template was set from the beginning: two completely unknown guys, many of them from places you don't hear anywhere, trading some lame punches. No knock-outs took place that evening, and that stretcher would have seen more action if it had been just tossed at the crowd. I mean... it's not that we were witnessing the next Muhammad Ali: many of those guys were probably semi-professionals with day jobs. There was a real Fight Club vibe in the arena, with those everyday guys beating each other... only that it was aggressively boring.

At one moment, I had to explain to people around me what Seychelles even is. They were impressed with my ungodly wisdom, and asked me where I leaned such wizardry. To which I calmly replied: in geography classes back in school. There wasn't even a Brazilian fighter so the audiences would have someone to cheer for, so they cheered for whoever was going against an Argentinian, or whoever looked more sympathetic to them. But naturally, there were foreigners in the audience to see their compatriots in the ring: close to me, there were two blond French - father and son, I think - who left the arena very happy to see two of their countrymen winning that day.

While everybody around me seemed to be enjoying the moment, I only stayed to the end because of a misplaced belief things would get better, that there would be an epic fight somewhere - precisely like when I saw Batman v Superman. But there was indeed one moment I'll never forget, a moment that really marked me a lot that day.

There was an Iranian in the roster of fighters, and before he appeared in the arena, a little crowd of Iranians sat down by my side, waiting for him. The funny thing about them is that they didn't look like how we imagine Iranians to look, which is to say middle eastern. The thing we don't know about Iran is that it's not an Arab country so to speak, but a Persian country, which is a different culture - now that was something I didn't learn in school. Some of them had blue eyes and pale white skins. In fact, with my sideburns, I looked more "Iranian" than they did. They gave me a little flag, and soon I was one of them, I blended in perfectly. I could pass off as an Iranian better than Andrew Garfield could pass off as a Brazilian. Hell, I look more "Iranian" than Marjane Satrapi.

This crowd next to me was really supporting their man. They didn't "adopt" him; they came there specially for him. The whole crowd at the stadium wasn't necessarily supporting the Iranian, but his compatriots by my side sure were. I remember them being incredibly friendly and lovable: one of them even offered me some Iranian snacks, but I didn't realise I had to peel them off from their shell. So I bit one entirely, and it was really gross because I couldn't swallow it. Oh, and they didn't speak English. Like, at all.

So that fight had a meaning to me: it was boring just like all the others, but once I felt there was something at stake, it became exciting. They really wanted their man to win.

But he didn't. He lost by split decision, just like in all the other fights. And it was heartbreaking to see how the Iranians reacted to that. They were bewildered; the expression on their faces was very sad, not quite tearful but still devastated. It's fair to say that Iranian people - that is, Persian people - have gone through a lot of hardships, so any chance they have to cheer up is much welcomed. They lost that chance there.

They left as soon as their fighter left the arena. I kept the flag, which I have even now. Moments like this compose the Olympic Games, for there has to be a winner and there has to be losers. We just think about the big figures, but not the whole picture. And what I saw that day was part of the whole picture: unknown athletes, who may not have another shot at the next Olympics, and who barely have the public warmth that Usain Bolt has.

That night, I saw their angle. And I saw those who stand by them.