So we are heading into the Olympic month this week.

A bit bizarrely the Rio Olympics have been dominated less by pundits' take on the gold medal tug-of-war and more by bad news about unlivable athlete dorms and makeshift stadiums.

Normally an Olympic sugar-rush would have had commenced by now; but little excitement has emerged from media reports and reached an ordinary viewer like me. Is this the "new normal" for the Olympics?

The Olympic Games tend to be associated with China's showcase of national power and striving for international recognition. China's first Olympic gold medal in 1984 can now be taken as a harbinger of its emergence onto the world stage, and its rise to runner-up place on the gold medal list in the 2008 Beijing Olympics looked like a emphatic stamp of its global preeminence.

Maybe it's just that there's not so much for China to prove from the Olympics this time, that the enthusiasm now seems relatively restrained. For me personally, the Olympic Games still mean something, as they are intertwined with some of the best moments of my life.

My memory of the summer of 1988 overflows with a delightful mixture of coolness and excitement. It was the Seoul Olympics time. My dad bought a second-hand black-and-white TV just in time. My brother and I sat on the red-tiled floor of our old bungalow, with eyes fixating on the movements of Li Ning, the great Chinese gymnast.

It could well be said that for the first time I was connected with the world through the Olympics. More importantly, my memories distill down to moments of happy family time.

The 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games occupies a place in my heart thanks to the Dream Team. I cannot remember if there were live broadcasts of the games involving this storied team, or even if I watched them at that time — in hindsight maybe not, due to the time difference of 7 hours. But I've watched replays many times since then. Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and all the other big names who brought so much joy to my life. They are testaments to the Olympic motto: higher, faster and stronger.

At the time of the 2008 Beijing Olympics my daughter was barely one year old and I remember telling her: "This is the Olympics." I was more overwhelmed by the joy and responsibility of being a father than anything else, including the Olympics. Besides the media's frenetic daily ritual of counting medals, the Beijing Olympics are perhaps better remembered for their blue skies and traffic control measures. How come we got so many gold medals in 2008 and since then the smog seems to have moved in a downward spiral?

In 2003 my parents-in-law bought an apartment in a new community called Tianjin Olympics Garden. What pleased them most, besides the layout of the apartment, was the sports facilities that can be accessed at no or low fees, depending on the sport. They had just retired and gladly adopted a healthy lifestyle made possible by the Olympics Garden. But roughly four years into it they were summoned to live with us in Beijing to take care of our newborn baby. The apartment went unoccupied for nine years and was sold recently as my parents-in-law decided to move into a community for retired people. The facilities are better than those at the Olympics Garden, but I'm sure the Rio Olympics will make them nostalgic for the Olympics Garden.

But if there's anything we can take away from the Rio Olympics, I hope it's the reckoning that the Games are for the betterment of human life and therefore should not come at the expense of overstretched budget.

Achievement and joy, that's what the games should be all about.

The author is a senior corporate manager based in Beijing.

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