Opinion: Olympic golf and tennis need to be reimagined under team formats

TOKYO – Before he even told us, you could tell what it meant to Pablo Carreno Busta to win the bronze medal in men’s tennis by the way his body was shaking. He had just beaten Novak Djokovic in three sets, just laid down beside the Olympic rings painted on the court and all he could do was sit down, hands covering his face, where it seems he still couldn’t quite comprehend the magnitude of what he had achieved.

Even for a seasoned pro on the ATP Tour, someone who has spent a lot of time ranked in the top 10 in the world, someone who has made the semifinals of two Grand Slams, the bronze was everything.

"I didn't win the tournament, but it's like the best title of my career,” he said, a simple sentence that captured why the Olympics are just different.