When LeBron James was in the 2004 Olympics, I was wondering if I could sleep through three more years of high school. When he won gold at the 2008 Olympics, I was trying to decide my future career. After his 2012 Games victory, I still had no idea where to take my life, but I had a sense I would find the answers outside the United States. Now, I have a family and a career in China, and James has just won his third Olympic gold medal. People eventually get around to changing, but sports are eternal.

These past few weeks, I've witnessed a change in the sports conversation at work, and on Chinese social media. There appears to be an increasing emphasis on celebrating athletes and their stories, rather than their accomplishments. The previous habit of admonishing athletes for falling short of gold is being replaced with adoration of character. Never mind that Zhou Yaqin won a silver medal; everyone instead fell in love with her "little sister energy" when she saw her Italian peers bite their medals, and emulated the tradition.

As the gold medal race between the US and China inched toward an eventual tie, one of my coworkers said, "Who cares? Every single person at the games worked hard to be there. They've already won."

I think she was right. Even more so, her statement belies a depth of introspection into the universality of sportsmanlike competition and the sacrifices anyone must make to accomplish their dreams.

We project ourselves onto Olympic athletes. James might be an impossible human specimen designed in a lab to consume the hopes and dreams of would-be basketball champions, but he also has gray in his beard, just like me. And yes, I once emulated the cool behavior of my older brother, much like Zhou.

James in Team USA was my reason for watching again after all these years, but it was my Chinese partner who encouraged me to follow Chen Yiwen, Pan Zhanle, and a badminton gold/marriage proposal double feature. For her, these were stories of human triumph.

During the 2008 Games, I could only be bothered to follow American athletes. They spoke my language and moved with my culture. I was young.

A broader grasp of world knowledge has provided me the space for introspection, and to gain a measure of who I am. The more I've learned about myself, the more I see myself in others. I see myself in my partner, my coworker, James, Zhou, and all the other athletes representing different countries at the Games.

It might be fun to debate which is more impressive, Chen Yiwen's physics-defying droplet dives (seriously, is she made of feathers?) or Grandpa James' soft-touch layup following a 360-degree spin in traffic, but that ultimately misses the point. We grieve their losses alongside them and raise them up in their success. They are, just like us, human.

Contact the writer at haydn@chinadaily.com.cn