Olympics/The Cheating Chinese
Let me just say, I am not a big Olympics fan. It has become a real circus and way too political for my taste. Yet somehow I find myself glued to the TV each night watching it. Some thoughts:
- What ever happened to the Olympics having a pure ameteur code? I know, I know, the Soviets. Nevertheless, the games were much better when the athletes didn’t have multimillion dollar professional sports contracts or endorsement contracts.
- I am over Michael Phelps. What he did was amazing, but the dude is cocky and poor sport. It is really hard to be gracious in winning, and from what I saw he wasn’t. I have to be honest that he embarrased me as an American on a couple of occasions. Poor sportsmanship seems to be the norm now, especially in track and field. Which brings me to…
- Usain Bolt. HOLY. CRAP. I have never seen a 100M dash field destroyed like that. I loved his exuberance after the race in both the 100 and the 200. When I ran track, I always wanted to excel in the 100, and could never figure out why I was so much better in the 200 (I ran the 110 High Hurdles and the 300 Intermediate Hurdles and the 4×400 relay). Usain Bolt gives hope to guys like me who are geared to be faster on the top end speed that we really are fast just because we can’t get out of the block fast.
- Beach Volleyball getting so much TV time. I am really insulted that slapping a couple of chicks into swimsuits that are a size too small makes a good sport. Apparently the TV ratings suggest I am the only one so insulted.
- Men’s volleyball. Being a former BYU student, it is hard not to be addicted to Men’s Volleyball (BYU perenially has a top 5 men’s team in the NCAAs). I wish NBC would show the entire match, not just the final set. Men’s Volleyball and track are two event I really look forward to watching.
- The Redeem Team. Who cares about that group of whiney thugs? Oh, and RAPISTS (Kobe). People have short memories, but I don’t. At some point Americans are going to have to admit that the rest of the world has caught up in the sport of basketball. Frankly, the sooner the better. I am proud to say I haven’t watched a single game or read a single article on US men’s basketball. By the way, I have to admit that one of the highlights of the last two Olympic games for me was watching the American Men’s Basketball team lose.
- Baseball and softball. The entire western hemisphere and Asia play these games. Why are they being decommissioned from the Olympics? Because the world doesn’t stop when the Olymics are happening (as the IOC believes it shoud) and MLB, Japanese leagues, etc. continue to play their regular season?
- Badmitton. Is this seriously an Olymic sport? Is it even a sport? Maybe we should introduce croquet (which, BTW is really fun to play on your lawn) or stone skipping as Olymic sports too…
- I stand corrected, Speed Walking takes the cake as the all time dumbest sport ever . I have a hard time taking a bunch of people who are walking, grabbing the water bottle out the course crew’s hands, taking a swig, and throwing the water bottle in the gutter like they are riding the Alpe de Huez in Tour de France seriously. Really, you can stop to sign a few autographs and still win the gold.
- NBC’s coverage of boxing. It was quaint when Americans were winning golds in the last few games. This time, they were all eliminated early and NBC has seemingly 24 hour coverage of boxing. I am just not that interested in seeing Cuban’s win gold medals.
- China Cheating. Is anybody surprised? They cheat and lie to the rest of the world politically, why would we expect them to do any different at the Olympics.
- Gymnast’s ages. So the girls are 14 years old. They still out performed the US team. Get over it. We lost. But, Mecki, we could have won if we had just started our 14 year old prodegies? OK, so we should have given them false passports and sent them to China. In any event, we could have won without our 14 year olds. But on the day, the best "little girls" won.I do get the argument that 14 year old girls are more flexible, have less fear (i.e., common sense), and are less likely to succomb to the pressure of the international stage. But they also have two less years of training. The Chinese government owns those girls and will ride them hard from birth irrespective of the age. So let’s just drop the age thing. All those gymnast girls are stunted in their growth from what they do and the stresses they put their bodies under. What difference is two years.
- Still hard for me to root for a Russian in any form. Now with Georgia and Putin et al. I really hope US Volleyball sticks it to their #1 ranked team.