The recent photo taken in Rio between Lee Eun Ju and Hong Un Jong was said to have perfectly encapsulated the Olympic spirit. It has shown how athletic competition can unite people and bring them together where politics and ideologies divide and separate them. The photo of the two young competitors also provided a stark contrast to the seemingly incorrigible atmosphere between Israeli and Lebanese athletes, who refused to travel on the same bus at the games. And it is in the Middle-East and its territories that we have come to always associate the term “two-state solution”.

What the photo meant to me, however, was that there are here two nation-states, each with their own sports committees and organizational boards; their own flags, anthems and insignias; their own heroes, medal-hopefuls, and long-shots. The two young ladies demonstrated that, when ideological differences regarding the optimum order of society are laid aside, they are simply two people from two different countries. The same race, admittedly, but no more different than Canada and the United States.