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The big Olympic swindle....
The Olympic games, it seems, are the new warfare: athletes, like soldiers before them, march behind the flag of their nation in order to do battle and win medals. It’s more of an economic war now: the host nation is ritually crippled by the cost of organising the event which is roughly equivalent to the collective GDP of the fifteen poorest African nations, whilst those fifteen nations spend more of their World Bank funding on sending their sports administrators away than they do on little things like education, health or, errrr, food. Doubt the intensity of the nationalism? Fifty seven heads of government, seventeen heads of state and a few token royals have decided Beijing is the most important place in the world for them to be this week.
What can be so worthy? Here’s a doubter’s lexicon:
Greco –Roman wrestling – involves positions that are still illegal in twenty states of the Union. Much more interesting when coupled with beer and Jello.
Swimming (butterfly) – a stroke modeled on man’s early failed evolutionary attempts to hoist himself from the primordial slime.
Swimming (backstroke) – the person who can go fastest backwards whilst staring at the ceiling wins.
Water polo – Greco-Roman wrestling (see above) in a hot tub.
Synchronised swimming (aka synchronised drowning) – proof that the IOC members are all old enough to remember Busby Berkeley.
Synchronised diving – synchronised drowning (see above) for vertiginous co-dependents.
Dressage – where is the ‘sport’ in teaching horses to mince?
Badminton – tennis on Prozac. You gotta be dubious about any sport whose goal is to beat the feathers off a cock…
Beach volleyball – nobody’s fooled about the rationale for the inclusion of this one, but who’s complaining?
Cycling road race – an event where cyclists get together for 245 kilometres of pleasant gossip before settling down for 5 kilometres of racing.
Cycling pursuit, Madison and Kierin – if you have any clue, share it with the rest of us.
Table tennis – who’s kidding whom? Let’s make Grand Theft Auto on PS3 an Olympic event. Or needlepoint… Tricky Dicky has a lot to answer for.
The 20Km walk – anyone see John Cleese of Monty Python in the Ministry of Silly Walks skit? He would have been disqualified at the Olympics for being too sensible. Still, if you can keep one foot on the ground before lifting the next and do that for 20 kilometres, you too can be an Olympian.
Rhythmic gymnastics – reserved for vertically-challenged anorexic pre-pubescents with blonde ponytails. You get a medal if you can make twirly patterns with a long ribbon – no kidding – or if you can throw a ball in the air and then catch it whilst doing the splits. Calling a move ‘the Arabian battle roll’ does not render it any more militaristic or dignified than it isn’t.
Discus – Frisbee without the dog or the fun.
Hammer throw – a carpentry event long before it was an Olympic event.
Javelin – you actually get points for missing people with your spear.
Demonstration sport – anything played by students in Tiananmen Square.
See you in front of the big screen....
Cheers,
pplater.
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The big Olympic swindle....
If one member of the synchronised swimming team drowns …
Apologies for the scare Andrew...
I can’t add anything original but…
