It’s Impossible Not to Get on Board With Denmark

It was late. After 1 a.m., the day had been long and the train from Olympic Park back to Central Station arrived.

In an unusual occurrence, I had a car to myself. There was blissful silence and room to dump that 800-pound backpack on an empty seat.

A whistle blew, the doors started to close. And then they stopped. Coming into the car, my car, my wonderfully empty car were 50, 60, maybe 90 men and women. They were singing. Their faces were painted red and white to look like dozens of Danish flags. They were dancing and laughing and making entirely too much noise.

So I tried to be crabby. But no one could have stayed crabby for long. What were they celebrating? Finally the question had to be asked.

“Team handball,” Mikael Jenssen said. “Our women’s team just made it to the gold-medal game.”

We don’t know team handball in the United States. Neither men nor women from the U.S. qualified for the Olympics in team handball, and I’m guessing no one back home noticed.

Katrine Petersen sat next to me. I picked up my bag, put it on my lap and didn’t mind. Petersen’s best friend played on the Danish team. Petersen wanted to explain about team handball. And about the celebration.

“This is the best game in the world,” Petersen said. “It is fast and it takes great athletic skill and timing. For us, in Denmark, we are a small country, and we don’t often do well in team sports. This is really a very big deal. Will you root for us in the final?”

Soon an invitation was offered. Come with us to the gold-medal game Sunday. Come paint your face and pretend you are a Dane. Please, you will have fun.

The train arrived and the Danish handball fans surged out of the car and sang and danced for a mile, maybe two.

Sometimes you find the best Olympic memories in the most unlikely places.

You find them sometimes watching television. There was a horse in equestrian dressage competition dancing and prancing to an instrumental version of Neil Diamond’s “Song Sung Blue.” It is worth coming to the Olympics just for that.

Sometimes you find them among the losers. Maureen O’Toole, the 39-year-old U.S. women’s water polo pioneer, finally had her Olympics. After she retired and had a daughter, the Olympics finally welcomed her sport, so O’Toole got to be an Olympian. She got a silver medal instead of gold, but all the women of the winning Australian team applauded O’Toole and made O’Toole stop crying.

At home, in a sports world dominated by professional sports, you lose the reason sports is fun. The Lakers win an NBA championship and a day later, after the riots end, all talk turns to which player is leaving, and which new ones should come. Here, at the Olympics, too much of the discussion has been about who is taking performance-enhancing drugs and who isn’t. Maybe we should have two Olympics. Those who want to load up their bodies with junk so they can run faster or jump higher or lift heavier weights, and another for those who just want to test their own limits.

But for one night, on one train, the Olympics were the Olympics.

No one outside Denmark will ever know Anette Hoffmann Moberg, a left wing for Denmark. She is the star of the Danish team handball squad. She has a husband, Peter, who was on the train.

Petersen asked again. “You must come see the game Sunday,” she said. “You will very much like the atmosphere.”

Of that there is no doubt. It is an invitation I was honored to receive from people I was honored to meet.

Go, Denmark.