Olympic athletes represent excellence, respect and friendship — all universal values that can unite a conflicted and divided world, said Bishop Gérald Caussé on Sunday.
Nowhere is the draw to those values more evident than in the record-breaking, almost 9 million tickets that have been sold for the 2024 Paris Olympics, said the Presiding Bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Addressing Latter-day Saint youth in his home country days before the start of the 2024 Olympic Summer Games, Bishop Caussé emphasized the remarkable coming together of diverse populations who are turning their focus to France, united by a single event.
“The nations of the world are meeting in Paris,” he said.
The special Olympic devotional held Sunday in Versailles, France, also featured Olympian and former BYU basketball star Jimmer Fredette; Olympic gold medal gymnast Peter Vidmar; and Rudi Sordes, who composed music for the opening ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
Bishop Caussé and each Olympian spoke about daily decisions and long-term goals, asking youth and young adults to prepare now to finish strong in the race of life.
Bishop Caussé centered his remarks on an athlete who did not finish first, but last. John Stephen Akhwari, a Tanzanian marathoner who competed in the 1968 Olympic games in Mexico City, was struggling with the high altitude and injuries. He was cheered by the crowd as he crossed the finish line — the last runner to complete the course. Bishop Caussé said when reporters asked him why he did not quit, he was definitive: “My country did not send me 5,000 miles to start the race; they sent me 5,000 miles to finish the race.”
Bishop Caussé said Latter-day Saints share a similar sentiment. “Our heavenly father did not send us here to start the race, but to finish it.”
The journey is not easy, and the finish line can feel far away, but the journey is “incredible and magnificent,” said Bishop Caussé.
And different from athletic competitions, some participants arrive first, some last and some injured. But in the Lord’s race, “everyone wins.”
Paris Olympics
Bishop Caussé — who is French — said it is a great honor for the country to host both the Olympic Games and guests from across the globe.
Amid conflicts and divisions in the world, he added, “there are not many times that all nations of the world gather together to celebrate.”
Paris — which has hosted the Games on two other occasions — also plays a significant role in Olympic history. In 1900, Paris became the second city to host the modern Olympics — then a grand event intertwined with the World’s Fair and celebrating not only athletic excellence but also culture and cutting-edge technology.
The city hosted the games again 100 years ago in 1924.
Bishop Caussé said the history of the Olympics is woven into the fabric of French history.
Frenchman Baron Pierre de Coubertin is credited with founding the modern Olympic games. At the 1889 Paris Universal Exposition, he organized the world’s first Congress on Physical Education. In 1892 at Sorbonne, he proposed the idea to reestablish the Olympic Games. On June 23, 1894, the International Congress of Paris for the Re-establishment of the Olympic Games approved the proposal.
Now the opening ceremonies of the 2024 games will take place on the Seine river in the heart of Paris. Some 10,500 athletes, representing 206 countries, will sail in the open-air parade of 160 boats.
France is, in many ways, “a crossroads of the world” — making it natural for the French to “receive the world in their home,” said Bishop Caussé.
Jimmer Fredette: ‘I became a much happier person’
Fredette, among the thousands of athletes competing in Paris, will suit up for the men’s 3x3 basketball competition.
During the devotional he reflected on his own Olympic journey. He spoke about entering the NBA after staring for BYU, reaching the Sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament and being recognized as NCAA national player of the year. He had a lot of media attention.
But after getting drafted and moving to Sacramento, things did not go as he had planned.
“All of a sudden, I was not playing nearly as much as I was at BYU,” he said. “I wasn’t playing nearly as well as I was at BYU.”
For the first time in his career, he wasn’t getting minutes in the game. He felt alone and depressed.
Then one day halfway through the season, he got a phone call from the late President M. Russell Ballard, then acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
As they talked, Fredette listed his problems and President Ballard listened. Then he asked, “Jimmer are you reading the Book of Mormon daily? … I guarantee if you do that it will change your life.”
Fredette took President Ballard at his word.
“My basketball situation didn’t change. I was still alone. But everything changed in my life because I had a different perspective. I was focusing on the right things, which made everything better. I became a much happier person.”
Fredette said President Ballard “did not need to reach out to me that day. For some reason he knew that he needed to. It was an amazing experience.”
Fredette told the youth they will each face difficult things in life. “You have to decide what road you are going to take. I know the power of having Christ as the center of my life.”
Peter Vidmar: ‘Always say your prayers’
During his remarks, Vidmar asked the youth to consider the distractions in their lives — especially their cellphones.
“Sometimes we spend more time watching people we don’t know, and we miss out on being inspired by people we do know,” he said.
Vidmar’s father, John Vidmar, learned gymnastics when he was young and loved the sport. But in his late 20s, he contracted polio and lost the use of many muscles in his body.
Peter Vidmar remembers as a child a day when his father came home from work, face bloodied. He told his family about a fall he had taken while crossing the street. Instead of complaining, he simply smiled and said, “‘I have to be more careful next time.’ That was the full extent of complaining that I ever saw from my father.”
John Vidmar inspired a family motto: “Vidmars do not quit.”
“My father never had to preach those words, he just lived that example,” Peter Vidmar said.
In his final days, John Vidmar was asked by a granddaughter if he had any advice for his great-grandchildren. “He said, ‘Always say your prayers, never give up.’ Those were the last words I heard my father speak,” Peter Vidmar said. “The lesson to me and to you is always say your prayers. Have faith in the Lord and do the things he asks you to do. Never give up.”
‘Be the best you can be’
After their remarks, Vidmar and Fredette stood at the podium together. Referencing the stark difference in their height, Vidmar quipped, “You can guess who is the gymnast and who is the basketball player.”
Vidmar spoke of a dilemma in his youth when his coach, Makoto Sakamoto, asked him to train on Sundays. “He was giving me 100% of his effort. He wanted 100% in return from me.”
When his religion compelled Vidmar to say “no,” he was asked to leave the gym.
But Sakamoto soon realized that the choice to not train on Sunday was a reflection of his conviction and his faith. “He respected that,” said Vidmar, noting he was invited to return to the gym.
For the next 10 years of his training, Vidmar always took Sundays off. “I had maybe 20 other days off in 10 years,” he said. “My coach saw that dedication.”
Sakamoto would later work as the head gymnastic coach at Brigham Young University — something that was possible because he was exposed to the Latter-day Saint faith and culture because Vidmar reflected them in his daily choices.
Fredette told the youth that if they are “on the fence” about something and faced with a decision, “you won’t know which way you will fall.”
Both faith and sports require discipline, said Fredette. “Only you know if you are trying to be the best you can be.”
Vidmar said the most important training occurs when no one is watching.
Rudi Sordes: ‘Choices you make’
Sordes spoke of growing up in the same Latter-day Saint congregation as Bishop Caussé — and detailed how the choices both he and Bishop Caussé made changed the course of their lives.
“The choices you make as a youth will impact the rest of your life,” he said.
Sordes was studying engineering when he contemplated changing directions, leaving the university and studying music composition at a conservatory.
He prayed all night and in the morning received a strong spiritual impression: “Finish what you started.”
He stayed the course and, to his great surprise, found a way to pursue both paths.
That led to the opportunity to compose music for the opening ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
Just like Olympic athletes, his preparation paid off. “I worked for 3 months on a 3 minute and 30 second long music composition and production,” he said.
When the ceremony was broadcast worldwide in real time, Sordes was “simply in my car with one of my sons, tuning my radio to the national public news channel, just like in a dream, to check that this was real. Within less than a second, I recognized the music that I had crafted for months in my studio.”
As part of the Olympic composition project, Sordes worked with Jiangbo Long under the direction of Yimou Zhang.
“We understood that despite our differences, we had common values and a desire to serve the community,” he said.