I really tried this time. I gave it everything I had. I even trained for months before it began — before the flame was lit.

I did my utmost to watch the Olympics on TV this year. If I watch just one more point of beach volleyball, I will go stark raving mad. Why don’t they just cut to the chase? Forget standard and beach volleyball and televise what everyone really wants to see — mud puddle volleyball.

I had trouble distinguishing the Olympic presentation from the other soap operas being broadcast at the same time: “The Young and The Restless,” “The Bold and The Beautiful,” and “General Hospital.”

I, like so many others, was interested to watch these talented athletes extend the current boundaries of human physical and mental achievement. In addition, I wished to learn about some of the “sports” (more on why the quotation marks below) of which I knew very little. Instead, I was flooded with information about some athlete’s trauma during her first day at school or his current love life trials and tribulations.

Ahhh, on to the hallowed history of the Games. Legend has it that these contests began in Greece in 776 BC — maybe. The International Olympic Committee took over the reins in 1894. One of the draws for me in the early years was that the Olympics was only for amateurs. That ideal slowly became tarnished with the final nail in the coffin being the U.S. fielding a professional basketball team in 1996 so they wouldn’t lose again — well, except for in 2004.

Supposedly, the Games superseded politics. It’s said that the warring Greek city-states of yore sent their contestants to compete. It became even humorous during the Cold War to watch U.S. and Russian judges award ratings of 1 or 2 to each other’s gymnasts.

“That’s not the case now,” I hear you say? The U.S. beat all the other countries in the total medal count at the conclusion of the Games by a wide margin. Might the fact that the Russians were not permitted to join the fray have something to do with that? The Chinese had the cheekiness to tie the U.S. in the total gold medal count. Perhaps they won’t be allowed to play next time. Oh yeah, they also sent several spy balloons over the U.S. recently.

Finally, to the events themselves. I can just picture the Popadopoulas family heading to the arena in Olympia, Greece, kids in tow, eager to watch the chariot races, the track and field contests, and the combat events, not to mention spending large amounts of drachmas to witness beach volleyball, breakdancing, and 3x3 hoops.

I’m sure you all recall that back on Aug. 14, 20218, in my article on these very pages titled, “Relieved Olympics are over,” I was the first to warn you that breakdancing would be in the XXXIII Olympiad. (I felt I had to add some gravitas to the discussion before it got completely out of hand.)

It seems to me that modern day Olympiads are morphing more and more toward street games: to wit, skateboarding, breakdancing, and 3x3 basketball. (The last example begs the question: What about 7x7 soccer or 4x4 ice hockey?) Being a top-ranked street game “athlete” on the streets of the Bronx in the ’50s, may I suggest stickball, stoop ball, baseball card flipping, and ringolevio for future Olympics, I mean Olympiads?

Heck, “I coulda been a contenda. And what do I get? A one-way ticket to Palookaville.” (Apologies to Marlon Brando, “On the Waterfront.”)

One more question, which Olympians will win the honor of being included in the next Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue?

I’ll conclude by being one of the first to tell you (I mean warn you) that pickleball medals are on the horizon and that the first eSports Olympiad will be held in Saudi Arabia next year.

In keeping with my best Bronx street and playground manners: Nice goin’ Gabby. Hey, ya wanna race?

Jonathan Kahane lives in Westhampton.