TORINO, ITALY — The old men played cards every day. I know this because I walked past them every day on my morning commute from the Politecnico Media Village to the Main Media Center.

Their venue was worn wooden tables next to a flooded bocce court at the edge of the Parco Cavalieri di Vittorio Veneto. Behind them, about a third of a mile away on the other side of the park, the Olympic caldron burned night and day, signaling the occasion of the XX Olympic Winter Games in their city.

I never once saw any of them look up from their cards to glance at the flame.

One thickset man in a heavy wool coat and a stocking cap pulled down around his ears, the Don Corleone among them, would lick his thumb and deal the cards — counterclockwise. He had a large stack of euro coins in front of him. Every day. Either he always won or he was always paying out.

I asked once, "Parla Inglese?" and one of them shrugged and said, "No capisce." That was the extent of our verbal communication, but they did not seem to mind when I'd stop to watch them play.

I wanted to hear their stories and ask what they thought of this Olympic invasion in a place they may have lived all their long lives. I imagined that they fought in Mussolini's Army in World War II, that they had been in Torino when the Allied troops swept down from the north, bombed their city and occupied Italy.

Now, men and women with rifles from 30 nations were in the north shooting at targets while wearing cross-country skis. What might they make of that?

If anything at all.

The image of those card-playing men is one I'll take home from my stay in Italy, along with memories of Lindsey Jacobellis and laid-back snowboarders and a scared-to-death Sasha Cohen and the look on the face of Park City's Ted Ligety the instant he realized he'd won a gold medal and fulfilled a lifelong dream at the age of 21.

In many ways, the Olympics are an illusion. Two billion people may tune in to watch on their televisions around the world, but at ground zero they are often an afterthought, as evidenced by miles of empty seats and wide-open highways. Either the Olympics are too expensive or too difficult to get to, even if they are in your own back yard.

Such was the case at the most recent Summer Olympics in Athens and such was the case in both Torino and the distant Alps villages where most of the competitions during the past 17 days took place.

From a purist's standpoint, the Winter Olympics probably shouldn't have been held in a city that is not a winter sports town (like Lillehammer) or an overall sports-loving place (like Salt Lake City).